Election process for county commissioners called into question

Spokane and most other Washington counties have selected their county commissioners in the same two-step process for more than 100 years. Candidates run in a district that covers a third of the county in the primary, then run countywide in the general election.

A recent federal appeals court ruling in Arizona, however, suggests that’s not constitutional.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the way the City of Tucson elects its council, in a process very close to the system used by most county commissioners in Washington. The candidates must live in one of that city’s six geographical districts and survive the primary in which only that district’s voters can cast ballots. In the general, the winner is chosen by all voters in the city.

Spokane and most other Washington counties have only three districts, but the system is much the same and brings up a key point of the court decision: the majority of people who vote for any given seat in the general election had no say in selecting the nominees chosen in the primary.

“A citizen’s right to vote in the general election may be meaningless unless he is also permitted to vote in the primary,” the majority of the court said, quoting a 1944 decision.

The ruling might also affect Washington’s port commissions, which also select members through district primaries and at-large general elections.

The ruling is so new that Washington officials can’t be sure what effect it will have on local elections. Officials in Tucson haven’t decided whether to appeal, so the opinion isn’t final, Scott Blonien, executive director of the Washington Association of County Officials, said.

“Obviously, the auditors are concerned to the extent it’s their job to make sure elections are run properly,” Blonien said. “It might force counties to do things differently.”

State law allows counties to vary from that system by adopting a charter, but only seven have done that. The rest have the three-commissioner system that dates to the late 1800s. State law allows voters the ability to expand their board of commissioners to five members, again with district elections in the primary and general elections countywide, but none have done it. Spokane voters turned down that option in last week’s election.

Spokane County voters elected freeholders in the mid-1990s to draft a charter, but voters turned that down in November 1995. Some local residents recently have been calling for another run at adopting a charter.