Is it possible that supporters, such as yourself, of a "top-two" primary should also be careful what they wish for? In your case, for instance, might not the result well be a general election of Gregoire vs. Sims, leaving you unable to vote for your candidate, Dino Rossi, in the election that counts most?

Respectfully, I disagree. If there WERE an open, "top two advance to the general" primary vote for Gov., with the current three main contenders, Rossi would almost certainly make the cut. And if he COULDN'T then manage to finish in the top two, statewide, against Sims and Gregoire, I'd have to conclude he didn't deserve to go any further in that cycle.

Also, for what it's worth, the late July Elway Poll (cited in my link on Rossi in the post here) had Rossi ahead of both Sims and Gregoire, and within six points of their combined total. Granted, that was late July, and the poll was of registered, not likely voters, but still...one gets some idea of how the numbers would shake out in a hypothetical primary involving those three running all against each other.

I doubt that I-872 will be invalidated if the voters pass it.

First, I-872 will likely pass with over 70% of the vote. That is a mandate that elected officials will fear to violate in a lawsuit.

Second, it is likely that only the Democrats would challenge it in court. Chris Vance, (Republican Chair) will probably not be the chair next year. He has burnt too many bridges with Republican candidates and grass roots Republicans who like the blanket primary.

The parties, and Gregoire, should never have tried to end the blanket primary.

Matt, count me as someone who is also a Ron-loving Rossi voter.

Hey, it's just a new system. The parties wanted freedom of association, so they got it. Now, we have freedom of choice, and in this case, it is the party who ultimately loses out.

Does the blanket primary really promote more voter choice, or just give us weak parties, indistinguishable candidates, and more confusion in fixing accountability for bad government?

Washington State has one of the weakest party systems in the nation, a result non unrelated to the type of strategic cross-over voting Matt's ballot exemplifies, and which obviously the current scheme does not entirely rectify.

For my own part, I would gladly exchange the opportunity to promote some turkey like Sims into the general election turkey shoot for the chance to vote for candidates whose behavior will reflect either credit or discredit on their parties, and who are more likely to be held accountable for that very reason. I do not see how this can happen unless the parties are given more control over who runs in their name.

In a perfect world we would go back to "smoke-filled" conventions. Short of that, give me the closed primary any day.

Did it bother anyone else that none of the major papers (at least none that I read) covered or endorsed the libertarian candidates? The party got enough votes last time around to get on the ballet, shouldn't the papers be endorsing one Libertarian cadidate or the other for govenor like they are doing for contested races for the other two parties? I reading the voters guide to see if I could vote Libertarian, I discovered I actually support Ruth Bennet and would have voted for her even without being forced to choose a party (some of the other L cadidates are pretty sketchy though...,) but without any back and forth in the media, I have no idea if she stands up to scrutiny so I am voting pretty blind.

I do wish I could vote for Sidran though, but I refuse to vote for either the D or the R this time around.

Supporters of the "Top Two" primary say it gives us "more choice", but they're really gutting the General Election in favor of the Primary. Independents and minor party candidates will never appear on the November ballot that way. There are usually about 1.5 million more voters at the General Election in Washington than show up at the Primary, and that probably won't change with the new system. None of that sounds very good to me.

A better answer is Instant Runoff Voting. Let everyone run in November, and we get to rank them "first choice", "second choice", "third choice" and so forth. If no candidate gets half of the votes, you eliminate the lowest vote-getter and redistribute his votes to those voters' second choice. If no candidate has half of the votes now, you cut the next-lowest vote-getter and move their ballots to their second choice. And so forth until one of the candidates has 50% of the votes cast.

It's like having the primary and the election all at the same time. We could get rid of the September "Qualifying Primary" altogether and save the expense. The largest number of voters, in November, would get to choose between the full set of candidates, without registering by party or anything.

The only way to make that happen is to vote AGAINST I-872 this fall, so we don't get stuck with the "Top Two" travesty, and then press your legistlators to do something better at the next session.

Thanks for considering this,

-- Bob Koerner