Filing has now closed for Washington state’s primary. The only statewide race up this year is U.S. Senator. All the other federal and state offices are district races, including 9 U.S. House races, 25 State Senate races, and 98 State House races. See the list of candidates here.
The Constitution Party has two candidates for U.S. House, and one for the legislature. The Green Party has one candidate for U.S. House, and one for the legislature. The Reform Party has one candidate for U.S. Senate. No Libertarians are running for any federal or state office. No one from the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, or the Freedom Socialist Party, is running, even though all four of those parties have an organization in Washington state. Nor is anyone from the Progressive Party running.
Independent candidates in Washington cannot just have “Independent” on the ballot next to their names. They must either choose “No party preference” or “Prefers Independent Party.” Most independent candidates went with the latter choice.
There are also candidates who have chosen labels that include a preference for parties that do not actually exist as organizations, such as the Bull Moose Party, the Centrist Party, and the G.O.P. Party. An “organization” is a group that has officers and bylaws and, generally, a method to determine who is a member, whether that be formal or informal. One candidate for U.S. House says he prefers the Tea Party.
Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed will not be publishing a Voters Pamphlet this year for the primary, due to budgetary constraints. There will, as usual, be a pamphlet for the general election.
That seems rather strange, that so many minor parties have apparently chosen not to run candidates in Washington State. Minor parties tend to have a greater share of the vote in Western states. The Libertarian Party particularly tends to run stronger in the Western states.
How will that affect their chances of staying on the ballot for 2012?
The choice is “States no party preference”. Party preference is a personal opinion of a candidate. Whether a candidate chooses to have his opinion expressed on the ballot is his option.
The last paragraph is apparently your definition. It is written somewhat like it is representing Washington law on the matter. Most of definitions of “party” no longer exist under Washington law. The highly esteemed Sam Reed proposed legislation that would define a “political party” in a formal matter that a candidate might express a preference for. The legislature, unfortunately, did not act.
There are 25 legislative candidates who did not apparently express a preference for the Republican or Democratic Party (I included Independent Democrat in this number, but excluded Reluctantly R – Republican).
This compares to 1 such candidate in 2006.
Write-in candidates may declare up to election day, but this does require a filing fee (or in lieu of petition). Washington does not require a formal declaration as a write-in candidate, but only will tabulate extraneous write-in votes if there is a possibility of it affecting the outcome of the election. In Washington, a candidate not only needs to finish in the Top 2, but receive at least 1% of the vote. If there is only one on-ballot candidate, the presence of 1% of votes as write-ins creates the possibility of a 2nd candidate qualifying.
In 2008, a declared write-in candidate did qualify for the general election in a write-in race.
“Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed will not be publishing a Voters Pamphlet this year for the primary, due to budgetary constraints. There will, as usual, be a pamphlet for the general election.”
This is another obvious step in eliminating all opposition voices from elections.
“Top-two” in Washington State is now in the consolidation phase on its way to the creation of an evil, Soviet styled election system.
“Top-two” is designed to create a single, state controlled party with all citizens required to join this single party or be excluded from the electoral process.
“Top-two” is the trojan horse for the one party state and the end of liberty.
“Top-two” is evil.
“Top-two” and its evil supporters must be exposed and stopped.
#3 The 2008 primary was the first which the State of Washington published a guide for the primary, because the legislature appropriated the money.
There will be an online version. I suspect that if some generous person contributed several $100,000 it could be done this year.
How about the Microsoft zillionaires in WA donating some cash for the voter guide ???