Muni News
VOLUME 90, ISSUE 6  - Fall 2000

Types of Primary Elections: Which Do You Prefer?
By Jocelyn Marchisio, Trustee

When the U.S. Supreme Court found California’s blanket primary to be unconstitutional, it became apparent that the State of Washington would also eventually have to find an alternative system of nominating candidates for public office. This is cause for much consternation: Washington State’s voters are very independent and have enjoyed use of the blanket primary system for years. Still, there are many alternatives to choose from. Consider these choices:

Blanket Primary = Voters may nominate any candidate in any given office regardless of their party affiliation. Now unconstitutional.

Closed Primary = A candidate may only be nominated for office by voters who have registered with the contender’s party. Unaffiliated voters may not vote.

Closed Primary, with Independent = Same as the closed ballot system, except that unaffiliated voters are permitted to vote. Sometimes, only one of the major parties (Republican or Democrat) allows Independents to vote in their primary, and that party is noted on the ballot in brackets.

Open Primary, Public Declaration = Voters must publicly declare their choice of party before receiving a ballot at the polling place on Election Day.

Open Primary, Private Choice = Voters receive ballots for each political party and make their choice of which primary to participate in within the privacy of the voting booth.

In the presidential primary, Democratic and Republican voters receive color-coded ballots; only ballots from party voters are counted for delegate selection.

The cutoff for changing party registration in a presidential year is the first Monday immediately after the presidential primary.

Unaffiliated voters may cast their vote for any candidate regardless of party affiliation. The political parties are not obligated to use the votes of unaffiliated voters for the purposes of delegate selection.

The state legislature will have the difficult job of choosing between these choices for Washington’s next primary election. Make sure your legislators know which choice you prefer.