Washington voters OK ‘Top 2’ primary

Washington voters adopted a Louisiana-style “Top 2” primary election system on Tuesday, in which the two primary candidates who get the most votes would advance to the general election, regardless of party.

With 12 percent of precincts reporting, Initiative 872 was leading 61 percent to 39 percent.

The new system would replace the state’s brand-new primary system, first used in September, which required voters to choose only one party’s ballot, and prevented ticket-splitting. That system was widely unpopular in a state where many voters disdain party politics to “vote for the person” and had grown accustomed to the freedom of a blanket primary system tossed out by the federal courts.

The political parties who forced the change from the blanket primary said they would go to court again if the Top 2 initiative passed.

Initiative 872 was proposed by the Washington Grange, and backers included former Gov. Dan Evans, former Sen. Slade Gorton, Secretary of State Sam Reed and Lt. Gov. Brad Owen.

Opponents included the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian and Green parties, Gov. Gary Locke and former Govs. Booth Gardner, Mike Lowry and John Spellman, plus the League of Women Voters.

The state budget office estimated that I-872 could save taxpayers $6 million over the current system.

For 70 years, Washington operated under the so-called “blanket” primary, which allowed voters to cast primary votes for any candidate, regardless of party. The top finisher from each party advanced to the general election.

Complaints by political parties who wanted more control of their candidates led to federal court rulings that doomed the blanket primary.

Last spring, the governor vetoed an ambivalent fix passed by the Legislature, creating a system that allowed voters to mark only one party’s ballot. The Grange struck back with Initiative 872.

Nearly every other state has partisan primaries and many states require voters to register by party.

But after the Legislature approved the Grange’s original blanket primary initiative back in the 1930s, Washington voters embraced the system.

When California voters adopted a similar system, the political parties appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the blanket primary infringes on parties’ 1st Amendment rights of association. In other words, parties could exclude nonmembers from picking their standard-bearers.