Write-ins are disruptive force in Washington elections, shouldn’t be brushed off
Mickey Mouse always makes an appearance. Donald Duck is often close behind. “None of the Above” is another popular alternative in American elections. Seldom do these write-in votes amount to more than a way for disgruntled voters to blow off steam.
But in Washington state’s general election Tuesday, write-in candidates were more than a throwaway vote in two key races. They turned out to be a disruptive force, changing the election calculus in a matter of weeks.
Ultimately, they may help send a pair of high-profile Democrats — Marilyn Strickland, in the 10th Congressional District, and Denny Heck, for Washington lieutenant governor — to office without a majority mandate.
Early results in these races suggest that Strickland and Heck have trust-building work to do over the next two and four years respectively. There’s nothing wrong with that. Even seasoned politicians with impressive pedigrees should feel pressure to prove themselves.
But the rising power of eleventh-hour write-in candidacies also points to a deeper distrust in our electoral institutions. With federal court blessing, Washington finally settled on a Top Two Primary system more than a decade ago, after years flirting with blanket primary and pick-a-party alternatives. That so many voters would rebel against that system now after embracing it in a 2004 ballot initiative is discouraging.
Strickland, the former two-term Tacoma mayor, will win the region’s only open congressional seat, which ironically was vacated by Heck. But as of Tuesday night, only 50 percent of the counted ballots were going Strickland’s way. The centrist Democrat left a lot of votes on the table in a district that stretches across Pierce, Thurston and Mason counties.
Strickland knew she faced a tough opponent from the left flank in state Rep. Beth Doglio, who garnered 36 percent of Tuesday’s count. The wild card in the 10th District turned out to be write-in candidate Marty McClendon, a perennial Republican office seeker and failed lieutenant governor candidate; he lost his second bid for that job in the August primary election.
The 14 percent of voters who went with the write-in option in this contest was unusually large. (We can safely assume most of those votes went to McClendon; the state doesn’t break them down.)
Never mind that McClendon, a Gig Harbor resident, doesn’t actually live in the 10th District. More than 37,000 voters were apparently willing to look past this glaring gap in his qualifications.
Meantime, a write-in candidate had even more outsized influence in the lieutenant governor’s race. While Heck hoped his long service in the state and US capitals would make him the easy choice to replace departing Lt. Gov Cyrus Habib, he only managed to lock down 47 percent of Tuesday’s vote.
As expected, Heck’s Democratic challenger, Sen. Marco Liias, showed well with 34 percent. What really hurt Heck was the write-in success of Republican Joshua Freed, recently a primary election candidate for governor. The write-in line for lieutenant governor snatched a staggering 19 percent of the vote.
Granted, more than half a million state ballots remained to be counted after Tuesday. But at this point, Heck should be content if he reaches 50 percent.
If the Evergreen State were the Peach State, Strickland and Heck would face the possibility of yet another election. Under Georgia law, a plurality of votes isn’t enough; a victor isn’t declared unless someone secures 50 percent of the vote, plus one. On Tuesday, a closely watched US Senate race in Georgia didn’t produce a winner and will result in a January runoff.
We’re glad Washington doesn’t play by the same rulebook. Heaven knows our state is ready for this election season to be over.
But Washington leaders would be foolish to brush off the Strickland and Heck outcomes. Should they consider changing write-in rules, perhaps requiring more than a simple candidate declaration? Should candidates be disallowed if they’ve already lost an election in a given year, ala McClendon and Freed? Should election officials examine and report write-in votes individually rather than just count them cumulatively?
All ideas are worth discussing. Write-in votes are a valid expression of democracy and shouldn’t be treated as anomalies.
Nationally the number of write-in votes exploded by a factor of five between 1984 and 2016, according to the Federal Election Commission. Ten years ago Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski won a US Senate seat with a write-in campaign; that hadn’t happened in America since 1954.
Clearly these upstart candidacies are more than a Mickey Mouse affair.