fenchurch | Washington State Primary Elections

Just got back from voting...

I was good and walked down to the polling place, a local elementary school which is not far as the crow flies, but is a bit of a stroll taking the streets and sidewalks. I'd recently decided to try walking two to three times a week and this was a good excuse to take a slightly longer walk than I've been managing. Plus, hills!! Go me!

Of course, the benefits would have been somewhat negated by my planned bake sale purchases (yes, I made sure to bring plenty of cash with me), but since the PTSA wasn't doing one this year, it wound up not being an issue. I can't tell you how disappointed I was that there were no baked goods available for sale... that's usually just about the best part of voting! :-p

This primary election marked the first time we've been required to only vote in the selection of one party's candidates and it's certainly caused quite a furor. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with letting the parties select their own candidates, but as a libertarian, it does irk me a little that the federal government has decided to step in, after all these years, and force the state to change its process.

Previously, the primaries were completely open... you could vote for a Democrat in one office, a Republican in another, or what have you, then the top winners in each party would advance to the general election. It worked well enough, though there were some accusations bandied about that opposing parties were mobilizing people to vote for the weakest candidate in the other's election (easy to do, in some cases, when the party in question only had a single candidate). I'm not entirely convinced that this necessitated federal interference, especially since the court decision that turned our election process upside down wasn't even directly concerning our state... it was based on a case in California.

Anyway, all that aside, I've been absolutely amazed at the amount of whining going on about the new primary... There's complaints that it violates our "right to privacy" (you know, I like my privacy as much as the next person, but I've yet to find that particular right in the Constitution), because we have to declare a party before we can vote. Um, no. But that leads into the other complaint, which is that it's "too confusing," so I'll address both together:

Here's how the process worked. I walked in, signed next to my name on the voter rolls, got handed *a* (as in singular) ballot. I was given instructions at that time, which weren't really necessary, as it's pretty blindingly obvious just by looking at the ballot what needs to be done. At the voting booth, I followed the incredibly simple directions printed right on the ballot.

First off, select the party primary you want to vote in. It's right up at the top, you aren't declaring "I'm a Libertarian!!!!!" or whatever to the world, you don't have to attest to being a registered member of the party in question, and in fact you could vote in the primary of a party you don't even belong to, if you want. To make it even easier, the three different parties are color-coded.

Next, you go to the very well-marked and color-coded section of the ballot which contains the party primary you've decided to vote in. When you reach the part that says something along the lines of "If you're voting for X party, STOP here moron!!!!" (okay, not really, but once again, it was blindingly obvious that you'd reached the end of the candidates in the party you selected) then you turn the ballot over (a fact which is indicated in several places on the ballot, on a sign in the booth, and was explained to me by the poll worker when I got the ballot) and vote in the non-partisan elections. If you don't care who the different parties run in the general election, you can just skip the first part of the ballot and only vote in the non-partisan races.

I'm still not entirely sure why some people think this method is the end of the world and the most complicated thing since Quantum Physics. Should be interesting to see what sort of turn out they get for this one, since supposedly there's a huge group of people who are sitting out this election "in protest." (Way to go, Einstein, you don't like the government changing your primary, so you aren't going to vote for the people who would be responsible for... oh, I give up.) Hmm... that may be why there was no bake sale today. And I was really looking forward to getting a Rice Krispie Treat.