Much recent evidence on both sides in the lawsuit against “top-two” in Washington state can be seen at the Washington Secretary of State’s web page. See here. The most recent documents are at the bottom. Because the case is over five years old, the list of documents is very long. To see the newest evidence, scroll down to the bottom. The case is Washington State Republican Party v Washington State Grange/State of Washington, cv05-927.
How many miles of files and filing cabinets used so far in the case ??? — to *stimulate* the legal economy in WA State.
Will the case go to SCOTUS again ??? Stay tuned.
See the MAJOR effort in the Winger item in the list of documents.
The Prop 8 gay marriage case stuff in CA may soon have even more miles of files than the WA top 2 case.
Pity the poor suffering clerks who have to hack their way through the filings.
If I understand correctly, the GOP appears to have abandoned its ballot access claims.
The Democrats and Republicans seemed to be pursuing an odd angle that because Washington no longer has party nominees, that its election process for precinct committee offices is unconstitutional and therefore the whole I-872 initiative should be overturned. What they don’t seem to understand is that Washington can simply re-enact the entire Top 2 election system with a slightly modified PCO procedure.
I’d be surprised if the judge is going to give much weight to 100s of newspaper clippings that refer to so-and-so as the Republican candidate, but who wasn’t officially selected by Luke Esser or other party bosses.
Their ballot study appears to be based on how ordinary decent voters use terms such as “associated with”, “representative of”, “nominee of” without recognizing that they probably don’t use those terms in the same sense that political scientists or the Supreme Court might.
The Democrats complaint is that the voters didn’t choose the Democrat candidate, including one who finished in 5th place.
The Libertarians are still pursuing the ballot access angle. Presumably preparing for their appeal.
As the State of Washington points out, the examples of party raiding presented by Richard Winger occurred in States with conventional partisan primaries (eg Tom Metzger).
The old legal principle [i.e. a MAJOR legal fiction] —
ALL adult persons in a regime are supposed to know ALL laws 24/7. Yeah Sure.
Result — EVERY voter is supposed to know every word I-872 in his/her head and the entire WA State election law — and EXACTLY what a party label means in the top 2 election system — i.e. NOT very much.
Thus — What are the alleged *disputed* FACTS in the case ?
What exactly is the alleged injury to ANY party — by having FREE publicity for such party if a candidate uses such party name on the ballots ???
Would a Hitler clone use *Communist Party* on the ballots ?
Would the Communist Party object ?
Would a Stalin clone use *Nazi Party* on the ballots ?
Would the Nazi Party object ?
P.R. and App.V. = NO MORON primaries are needed.
Direct ballot access via EQUAL nominating petitions.
Way too difficult for the MORONS in the States to understand ???
Pity the tons of trees dying for the tons of paperwork in the WA top 2 primary case – start to finish — and the poor suffering clerks going blind reading all of the paperwork.