The U.S. Supreme Court has set October 1, the first day of the new court season, to hear Washington v Washington Republican Party, no. 06-730. This is the case over whether states may use “top-two” primaries in conjunction with party labels on ballots. A “top-two” primary is very common for non-partisan elections around the U.S. Every voter gets the same primary ballot, and that ballot lists all candidates. A run-off between the top two vote-getters is then held.
Washington state law says that this type of primary should be used for all elections, except presidential elections. The Democratic, Republican and Libertarian Parties sued shortly after this law was passed in 2004. The parties argue that if Washington state is going to use this type of primary, it must leave party labels off the ballot. The U.S. District Court, and the 9th circuit, agreed with the political parties.
This is a perfect example of where Instant Runoff Voting would be helpful. It would let all candidates run, party label in tow, and still have the winning candidate with majority support in one election.
Louisiana is now the only state that uses the “top two” to elect all of its state officials. Louisiana alone has used the “top two” for its congressional elections but is restoring party primaries for those elections, starting in 2008.
I predict that Washington state will wind up with some version of the “top two.”
Since you’re calling the first round a “primary,” is the second round a “runoff primary”?
In Louisiana, when a candidate gets 50%-plus in the first round, it (sha-zam!) magically converts from a “primary” to a general election, and there is no second round of voting.
Exactly, but if a candidate doesn’t receive a majority in the first round, taxpayers then pay for a separate election, which may not even attract as many voters as the first. IRV is one way of solving the problem of holding potentially two elections at once. Not to mention, in case a voters’ choice in the first round is eliminated, their respective second choice is applied, and so on. On a separate note however, I thought I read elsewhere that the problems the third parties had with this was that they weren’t able to have party affiliations, and had a problem with voters not of their party voting on essentially their primary along with other parties respective primaries on one ballot.