With most of the votes counted in California and Washington state, it appears that California voters have defeated Proposition 62, but Washington state voters have passed I-872.
Both propositions would eliminate minor party members for congress and state office from appearing on November ballots.
Congrats to CA voters for defeating the “top two” Prop. 62 monstrosity. It’s not surprising that WA state passed I-872, since it has a long history of using the blanket primary.
It’ll be interesting to see what the federal courts say about this. Meantime, this’ll hopefully discourage efforts to enact similar measures in Oregon & Alaska.
The “top two” makes it much harder for small-party & independent candidates to reach the final election, but it’s not impossible. (The Libertarians are a major party in WA state, incidentally.)
See “Will Washington (and California) Cross the Rubicon?” at southerncrown.blogspot.com.
It is now time to push WA Initiative 318 for Instant Runoff Voting to undo the problems introduced with I-872. See http://www.irvwa.org/ or http://www.fairvote.org/irv/ for details.