Washington state has been using government-printed ballots since 1890. In the 116 years between 1890 and 2006, Washington state never had a Democratic-Republican ballot monopoly for all congressional and all state statewide offices. But in 2008, for the first time ever, only Democrats and Republicans are on the ballot for all the statewide state offices and all the congressional offices. This unhappy turn of events is caused by the “top-two” election system, in use for the first time in Washington state this year.
Used to be, we called D.C. “the bad Washington” and the state was “the good Washington.”
Now I guess we say “the bad Washington” for the state and “the worse Washington” for D.C.
Rumor has it that Secretary of State Reed, in promoting the top two to the Republican state legislative caucus, touted the fact that minor parties would never make it to the general election. Apparently he believes the Libertarian candidates have spoiled too many races recently. Of course, what he didn’t say was that there are no “safe districts” either.
Stay tuned. The saga continues.
The result of a D-R monopoly in the general election will be a good reason for this law to be overturned.
Why is it we go to war in other continents? One reason often given is to provide people with freedom, liberty, and a democracy, even if we do not have it here. I am glad that we still have elections, but at this rate we are already down to choosing between Cheez-its and Cheese Nips. Why not a Republic? That’s what we had from 1789 until you-fill-in-the-year. Washington state should definitely add the sickle and hammer to their state flag. It would help American citizens better understand the system of gov’t there before moving to that state.
Alternatively, this is the first election since 1889 where all voters have been able to participate in all phases of the selection process of their officers.
#5 “Alternatively, this is the first election since 1889 where all voters have been able to participate in all phases of the selection process of their officers.”
The quote above is the kind of hogwash used to justify Communist elections.
Washington State is now a communist dictatorship. Free elections have been suspended in 2008.
To the Government morons in Washington State:
Please remember that in countries where there are no free elections, the people have no recourse but violent revolution.
The US has been free and fairly stable for over two hundred years because the elections were at least partially free. But if alternative candidates cannot appear on the ballot in Washington State, then the supporters of alternative viewpoints have no reason to consider the system to be free, nor the results legitimate. They have every reason at that point, and they will believe, every justification, to use violence.
Please restore choice in Washington State before it is too late.
Why not simply use non-partisan IRV? That way ALL voter get to participate, and no party or parties dominate the ballot!
Are the 2008 top 2 candidates more or less extremist than the 2004-2006 party hack extremist candidates — especially in the marginal gerrymander districts – for the Congress and State legislature ???
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NO primaries are needed.
P.R. and A.V.
No foul here. Third parties participated in the primary election(or at least should have).
The problem with Agent 88’s comment was highlighted in another recent post here on BAN. Richard Winger pointed out that, I believe he said, in to state wide primary races the Consitution Party candidates polled over 5%, which, if they had been on the general election ballot (the one that actually elects people to office), that vote would have made the CP a ballot qualified party in the WA. But, because theya re excluded from the general election, they can never qualify for major party status, because they will never be on the November ballot to get over 5%.
Secretary of State Reed….
wasn’t there a Speaker of the House named Reed…commonly referred to as Czar, who whipped the house beneath his will?
History goes in circles.
Comment #5: It’s true that “top two” voters are able to choose among ALL the candidates in the preliminary round. But the price they pay is that they have only 2 choices in the final, deciding election.
Why should the voters be limited to just 2 choices in the final election?
When the 2 runoff candidates are from the same party: not only is that party split, but the other parties’ faithful voters are effectively disenfranchised.
Another problem with using the “top two” for state and congressional elections is that, unlike local and judicial elections, the national parties get involved in those races. Louisiana has had elections in which the national party and the state party endorsed opposing candidates for the same office.
Re #10
What does being a recognized party (“major political party” in Washington law) get you?
1) You get a presidential primary, and it is easier to get your presidential candidate on the general election ballot. In Washington, the Democrats ignored the results of their primary. And many Washington voters hated that they were required to make a public declaration of political faith in order to vote. In 2004, Washington didn’t have a presidential primary at all.
It would be better to eliminate the party primaries and let all would-be candidates run on a single ballot regardless of party preference. Let any candidate who receives 1% of the vote be on the November ballot. It could be as easy to get on the presidential primary ballot as it is for the statewide primary – which in Washington is quite modest. For example, there were 10 candidates on the August gubernatorial ballot.
Just as they do now, the political parties could use the results of the primary to choose their delegates to the national convention. But now this would be an option available to any party.
Based on the 2008 primary, 6 candidates would have qualified: Obama, Clinton, McCain, Huckabee, Romney, and Paul. Under a fully open primary, accessible to all candidates, all voters, and all parties, other candidates might have qualified.
2) You get to / are required to elect precinct primaries at the top 2 primary. This is an anomaly, since nothing else on the ballot is limited to party voters, and election of party officers is better left to the political parties.
If you want to recognize political parties, require the party to hold conventions every 4 years (or annually or biennially at the discretion of the party). If attendance at the convention is sufficient, say 1/10 of 1% of the vote in the presidential election, you could be recognized by state and get a certificate signed by the Secretary of State.
Re #7
If AV had been used in the August primary, the final two remaining in the count would have been guaranteed to be the same as the Top 2 candidates, in all but 2 congressional races and 7 legislative races, regardless of any secondary preferences. All would have involved only R and D candidates.
A Top 2 system lets those who preferred one of the losing candidates to consider which of the top 2 candidates they preferred, without having to make a premature decision.
It is like you go to a restaurant and order tofu, and then the waiter returns and tells you that they don’t have any tofu, and you can choose between beef or chicken. It is much simpler than having to rank your preferences when you order.
In the gubernatorial race, there were 10 candidates, yet the Top 2 had over 95% of the vote between them. Voters would have had to waste time ranking the other candidates, or at least make an evaluation whether they were wasting their time. Some voters would have likely messed up and had their vote discarded.
There are many different races on the ballot, so voters would also have to make a ranking decision for each one.
While write-in voting is possible under AV, it requires a lot of hand counting of votes.
Re #12. The choice in the final round is between the two candidates who had the most support in the primary. You might as well complain that they have to make a choice at all.
In a republican form of government the people choose which persons are their government officials. They aren’t choosing the leaders of their political gangs.
If a “party is split” it simply means that some “members” of the party favor one candidate and other “members” favor another candidate. In a Pick a Party primary, a “member” is someone who ticks a box in secret. It is presumptious to claim that if 40% of all persons vote for Democrat A, and 35% vote for Democrat B, that they were really only wanting to choose the Democrat nominee and not who their legislator would be, and that the real choice would then be between Democrat A and some other candidates who split the remaining 25% of the vote.
Instead, under Top 2, this other 25% of the electorate can be determinative in selection of their representative. This other 25% who may be supporters of other parties are enfranchised – because their vote will mean something.
Why is it a “problem” if the national party supports one candidate and the state party supports another candidate?
RE: Jim Riley
With top-two you do not have free elections. Period.
Voters do not have any real choice.
This system was designed to eliminate choice and guarantee that a group (a neo-party of well funded special interests) can run two correctly chosen and postioned candidates in each race, organize using statistical methodology and control the only two allowed spots in most, if not all, districts.
It is worse than the Communist Election system in the USSR.
By denying alternative parties a chance to participate in the “real” election, they are given no chance of building or growing in size and are disenfranchised permanently.
This will result in massive alienation, frustration, and engender massive never-before-seen political violence and political terror.
Free elections are supposed to give people the chance to debate and present their viewpoints in a fair and open electoral climate that at least leaves the losers with the consolation of having had a hearing for their rejected ideas.
Top-two will leave almost everyone feeling disenfranchised, except the winning candidates. Even many who may have voted for the victors will feel that their vote was not free, they had no real choice and that they were disenfranchised.
Top-two is Communism times two.
Top-two must be abolished everywhere.
Why is it not a “real choice” if the voters choose among all candidates in August, and later make a final choice in November between those who demonstrate the most support from the voters?
Why is it a “real choice”, if the voters are first required to declare their ideology in order to be allowed to vote, and then in the election in which all voters may “freely” participate, they are restricted to voting for only certain candidates put forward by political gangs?
Comment #15: You and I have had a number of exchanges on the “top two” monstrosity, and I don’t see that another such exchange will accomplish anything. The bottom line is that you don’t give a damn about political parties, and you want elections to be free-for-alls.
Political parties (“gangs,” as you call them) have been around since the start of the republic, and they aren’t going away. As Scalia said in CA Democratic Party v. Jones, “Representative democracy… is unimaginable without the ability of citizens to band together in promoting among the electorate candidates who espouse their political views.”
If the “top two” is such a great idea, why is it that only 2 states– Louisiana and Washington– use it to elect all of their state officials? And now that Louisiana has wisely restored party primaries for Congress, Washington is the only state using the “top two” for congressional elections (which I predict will be declared unconstitutional).
In the “top two,” independents and small-party candidates rarely reach the runoff. If a small party’s message is left out of the final, deciding election, the party loses its main reason for existing.
And you still haven’t told us why the voters should be limited to just 2 choices in the final, deciding election. I’m certainly glad that we’ll have more than 2 choices for president on Nov. 4.
Suppose, in the first round of the “top two,” one of the major parties has 6 or 7 serious candidates, while the other major party only has 2 or 3. The chances are then great that the votes for the party with 6 or 7 candidates will be so split that no candidate from that party will reach the runoff.
The “top two” tends to result in runoffs between extreme candidates, to the exclusion of moderates. 2 good examples of this were the 1991 and 1995 Louisiana governor’s races. In 1991, the national Republicans and the state GOP endorsed different candidates, neither of whom made the runoff, which featured a crook and an ex-Ku Klux Klansman. The 1995 runoff featured a white conservative Republican and a black liberal Democrat (now-U. S. Sen. Mary Landrieu had finished third). Neither the 1991 nor the 1995 runoff was a competitive race, and many voters felt disenfranchised.
How many of the winners will NOT be chosen by a majority of the Electors in each area involved ???
Stay tuned for election results — especially in the few marginal gerrymander districts.
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#18 — How many of the business- as- usual plurality nominees in the D/R primaries result in general election runoffs between *extreme* candidates (especially in marginal gerrymander districts) ??
Answer — ALL of such D / R candidates are leftwing / rightwing extremists — resulting in the EVIL gerrymander monarchy / oligarchy *politics* in the U.S.A. Congress and every State legislature having such
primaries.
About 95 plus percent of gerrymander districts are one party *safe*.
Result – the majority party gang chooses nonstop extremists to be candidates in standard primaries — the nutcase extremists that are more extreme than any others in such local party gang — who later get elected.
The top 2 primary will put some major pressure on to reduce the extremist stuff — especially if 2 D or 2 R are nominated in the same area.
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However —- NO primaries are needed.
P.R. legislative and A.V. nonpartisan executive / judicial.
#18 Modern-style partisan primaries are not “citizens … band[ing] together in promoting among the electorate candidates who espouse their political views”. They are state-sponsored activities, where voters are forced to declare a political affiliation simply to effectively participate as a member of the electorate.
The Mississippi Democratic Party said that it was a quasi-governmental organization that was seeking to identify voters associated with other (quasi-governmental organizations) or those voters who did have any such affiliation, so as to permit the MSDP to exclude these outsiders from voting in certain public elections.
If there were not partisan primaries, citizens could band together to espouse their political views. You arent’t claiming that there weren’t citizens who had banded together to support Edwin Edwards, David Duke, Buddy Roemer, Cleo Fields, Mike Foster, Buddy Roemer, or Mary Landrieu or their political views, are you?
You haven’t told us why a candidate who has the support of 30% of the V-O-T-E-R-S should be excluded from final decision, while someone who only has the support of a few percent of the electorate is included?
As Justice Scalia noted in Jones, 2 is not the only possible number. Other possibilities might have candidates who collectively received 80% of the vote advancing to the general election, with a runoff to follow.
ps they even use gang colors.