The following editorial from the Yakima Herald-Republic does not necessarily reflect the views of The Spokesman-Review’s editorial board.

It’s official: Mitt Romney will appear on the Washington state general election ballot as his party’s nominee for president. Was there any doubt? Well, a little, because of a legal technicality.

The Libertarian Party of Washington had challenged Romney’s status as the Republican standard-bearer by employing some creative – we’re being generous here – lawyerly logic. Recall that after several contentious early presidential primaries and caucuses, Romney eventually cruised to a commanding lead in the delegate count and is running even with President Barack Obama in national public opinion polls.

So why the contention? The Libertarians take it back to 2010, when they claimed the Republicans of Washington lapsed into minority status by not getting 5 percent of the statewide vote with a “nominated” candidate for U.S. Senate. That candidate was Dino Rossi, a Republican who did get 48 percent in his challenge of incumbent Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

The Libertarians argued the Republican state convention did not take up a nomination vote that year because it met during the primary, when Rossi and fellow Republican Clint Didier were contenders on the ballot. Rossi and Murray were the two who emerged from the Top Two primary.

Last week, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Thomas McPhee ruled that after the primary, Republicans took the proper steps to choose Rossi as their nominee. The judge also agreed with the Secretary of State’s Office, which argued that the Top Two primary does not nominate finalists by party but winnows the field to two for the general election. The state also contended the Top Two system “impliedly” repealed the major-party provision, and a more-recent state election code made it clear that the Republicans gained major-party status in the 2008 president vote, in which the McCain/Palin ticket got 40.5 percent of the vote.

If the Libertarians have any thought of appealing the ruling to the state Supreme Court, they should drop it now. Any further litigation is waste of resources and time; the latter especially is in short supply as the state prepares its voters pamphlet for the general election.

The good from this case is that the ruling does uphold key provisions of the Top Two primary, which was approved by voter initiative after the major parties challenged the long-standing open-ballot primary system. The parties’ legal action briefly brought to the state a system that forced voters to pick a party in the primary election. Voters afterward approved the Top Two, and the courts have held that the Top Two law superseded the pick-a-party primary.

So the Republicans don’t like it, the Democrats don’t like it and now the Libertarians don’t like it. But the Top Two has found favor among the voters, and with this nuisance lawsuit brushed aside, the state can move forward to the November general election.