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Parties should back off threats to void election
THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: July 10th, 2008 01:23 AM (PDT)
Washington’s political parties certainly have their rights, but they’re asking for a world of trouble by suggesting they’ll seek to void the results of the state’s first “top two” primary election next month.
Officials with the state Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties are understandably unhappy with the state’s plans to implement Initiative 872.
The initiative’s top-two system, the voters’ answer to the court-ordered demise of the state’s blanket primary, hamstrings the parties’ ability to select their own standard bearers. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the new primary in theory, its decision left open the possibility that it could be unconstitutional in practice.
If parties can present credible evidence that voters are confused about which candidates are the official party candidates, then a court could rule that the top-two primary is tantamount to forced association and therefore a violation of the First Amendment.
But that is an argument to settle after next month’s election, if necessary. The very reason the Supreme Court rejected the parties’ challenge of I-872 is because the initiative had never taken effect and therefore the parties could not prove harm.
The parties apparently are not satisfied with biding their time. In letters to state officials this week, they objected to plans for next month’s top-two primary, claiming that an old federal court order bars the state from proceeding.
Democratic lawyer David McDonald put it most plainly: Running a top-two primary “will expose all of the results to challenge, potentially wasting significant taxpayer resources on elections that have to be redone.”
What the parties are posing is a serious threat to the democratic process. Imagine the 2004 gubernatorial race from hell writ larger, with dozens of county and state races in dispute, lines of succession in question and Washington teetering on the edge of a constitutional crisis.
The state has proceeded with the top-two primary on good authority. Candidates registered under those rules, and the first ballots go out in two weeks. There is no reversing course now.
The parties are free to rattle their sabers all they want – and to press their rights in court, should experience prove that top-two voting confounds voters. But they should back off threats to throw 2008 elections into disarray.
Originally published: July 10th, 2008 01:23 AM (PDT)
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