On April 14, the Washington state legislature passed SB 5171, which moves the primary for all office from late August to the first Tuesday in August. The deadline for candidates to file in that primary in 2012 (assuming the Governor signs the bill) will be May 18.
One of the disadvantages of top-two systems is that they close off all routes to the November ballot very early, because they do not provide any means for anyone to be on the November ballot unless that person has run in a primary. Thus, no one will be able to enter a Washington state partisan election beyond mid-May (except as a write-in candidate), almost six months before the election itself. Before 1977, Washington state had a route to the November ballot as late as mid-September.
P.R. and App.V
NO primaries are needed.
Annual Elections – to put the party hack robots on notice.
Old saying – When annual elections END, then tyranny begins.
History note – CT had elections in May and Nov early on – until the party hacks took over.
This is disingenuous on your part. The reason for the move to an earlier primary is to give enough time to count mail ballots that arrive after the election date, and provide mailing of ballots 45 days before the general election.
This would be true if the blanket primary or the pick-a-party primary were used. With an early August primary, ballots will have to be sent out in mid-June. To provide time for ballot printing, etc., even when the blanket primary was used, the party bosses would have had to choose the minor party candidates by May.
#3, if Washington state would give up top-two, it would be free to have an independent candidate petition deadline in August. Thus there would be an avenue to the November ballot as late as August that didn’t depend on write-ins.
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#5 They could skip the primary altogether and have a runoff in January. You would be probably complain that there was no advantage for independents then.