Washington's top-two primary robs voters of political choices

On Jan. 19, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Washington’s new top-two primary. The decision dispensed with many objections to the new system but didn’t address its principal problem: It severely curtails voter choice.

Most voters aren’t too interested in the process of nominating party standard bearers, believing that the core contest is the general election in which, presumably, people of many different political philosophies compete.

But by design, the top-two reduces general election choices to the two candidates who garnered the most votes in the primary.

Voters who traditionally wait until after Labor Day to even consider political questions find that all their choices have been reduced to two. Almost invariably, that will be a choice between the big old parties’ candidates.

Because choices are so drastically reduced in the general election, the top-two primary’s principal effect will be to destroy, over time, all the upstart political parties and cement the power of Democratic and Republican parties, whose candidates monopolize the November ballot.

Few new-party activists will put in all the time, money and emotional energy needed to mount a campaign simply to talk to the limited number of voters listening in advance of the August primary. These challengers, knowing they likely will be eliminated from the general election ballot by the top-two, will just quit bothering to participate.

The Libertarian Party struggled for years against tough election laws to gain major-party status in 2000. That year, the Libertarians fielded candidates for almost every statewide race and many dozens of candidates for local office.

Candidates from the Reform Party, Natural Law, American Heritage, Constitution and the Green Party regularly appeared on Washington’s general election ballot over the years. But the top-two now makes it nearly impossible to talk an alternative candidate into running except where a Democrat or Republican is unopposed.

Look for the former smorgasbord of parties participating in the November election; you will be disappointed to see they’re all gone (except for the presidential election, which has no primary).

Since the new system was adopted, it has become another huge impediment to building any alternative to the Republicans and Democrats. Gone is all the voter choice in the general election. Worse, go attend a meeting of these new parties and you will see that attendance is a small fraction of what it was before the top-two, although nationwide participation in alternative parties is booming.

That’s sad. New and innovative parties serve at least two important purposes.

 • Lots of good ideas are first promulgated by upstart parties, only later to be adopted by the big party candidates.

 • Having many new-party candidates lose actually legitimizes wins by the big old parties.

To have authentic wins, you have to have lots of authentic losers. Communist Party candidates regularly won in Russia, but no one believed the elections were real because only Communist Party candidates were allowed to run. The practical effect of the top-two is to rule out most choice before many voters even start looking at candidates.

Given the serious reduction in voter choice at the general election designed into the top-two, I’d say there is little to cheer about the 9th Circuit’s decision.

Luckily, it’s one of the most reversed courts in America. Without help from the Supreme Court, the top-two could be with us forever because any change to that system would have to be voted in by Democrat and Republican legislators. Fat chance.

John S. Mills of Tacoma is a former chair of the Libertarian Party of Washington State