A federal court struck down the state’s “blanket” primary system on the eve of today’s county primary, saying the system violates the right of political parties to have their own members choose candidates for office.
Elections officials with the Secretary of State’s Office and in Clallam and Jefferson counties, said Monday that although the ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could do away with the state’s 68-year-old partisan primary system, it will have no bearing on today’s odd-year local primary.
In a 3-0 decision, a Seattle panel of the court cited a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled a similar system in California unconstitutional.
Washington’s system, adopted by initiative in 1935, allows voters to pick nominees from any political party or even to mix and match — picking a candidate for governor from one party and a candidate for secretary of state from another, for example.
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The rest of the story appears in Tuesday’s Peninsula Daily News.
