PORT ANGELES — Change might have been a buzz word in last November’s election, but changes have been under way in the election system in Washington for several years, the state’s chief elections officer said Monday.
And more are to come, Secretary of State Sam Reed told the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
Reed spoke to an audience of about 75 at the weekly Monday meeting at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant in the Red Lion Hotel.
With the introduction of the Top 2 primary last year, the third type of primary was used in Washington since 2002, Reed said.
Reed is author of the Top 2 primary scheme, which advances the top two vote-getters to the general election, regardless of party.
It replaced the popular blanket primary system, which was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002.
Like Top 2, the blanket system allows voters to cross party lines with impunity and vote for candidates of their choice.
Top 2 went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with Reed and allowed the system to be implemented.
“People really wanted to vote who they wanted to vote for and not be restricted to one party like they are in some states,” Reed said.
In between the blanket primary and Top 2 was the unpopular “pick a party” system, which was implemented at the direction of the Supreme Court when it outlawed California’s blanket system.
In “pick a party,” the primary voter had to select a partisan ballot from four offered and vote only on that ballot.
No crossover voting was permitted.
Vote tallying
Reed’s latest attempt at election reform was in the form of establishing when all-mail election ballots must be received to be tallied.
Ballots currently must be postmarked by Election Day. He wanted them to be received by Election Day to count.
“What happens is that county courthouses are being overwhelmed on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after the election — and sometimes, if it is really close, they can’t even declare who a winner is until all the ballots come in,” he said.
“Another problem is many people might mail ballots on Election Day, but then sometimes they don’t get postmarked until the next day — that results in thousands of votes not being counted because they are not properly postmarked.
“This would be better system of ensuring that the results are quickly counted and that more votes get counted,” Reed told the chamber.
However, his plan to receive ballots earlier died in legislative committee last week.
‘Archaic’ caucuses
Reed said that although no there is no solution in the near future, he and many others nationwide are working toward a more efficient and effective primary system than the caucus system.
“The caucus system is kind of archaic, and they discriminate against people who can’t be there or who have disabilities or who speak English as a second language,” he said.
“We usually have a voter turnout rate of about 47 percent in our elections.
“The caucuses get about 7 percent of people voting.”
He said that it would have to be a change in the system implemented by the parties.
“We are also working on making the primaries later and also a more systematic way of rotating them regionally,” he said.
“We have been strong advocates of this, and it won’t happen right away, but we are taking steps to get there.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladaily news.com.
