We liked a recent editorial in The Seattle Times on an interesting facet of Secretary Reed’s Top 2 Primary update legislation. 

It has to do with party preference designations that Washington candidates can make.   Under current rules, candidates can designate any party name they prefer, as long as it fits within 16 characters.  The state’s voter-approved, U.S. Supreme Court-blessed primary system no longer is a nominating procedure, but a winnowing election to pick two finalists for each office, and the preference listed by the candidate doesn’t mean that party endorses or identifies with the said candidate.  

As a practical matter, the bill to change this is probably dead for this year (along with bills to allow online voting by military and overseas voters, and to require ballots to be received at the county elections office by Election Day, not merely postmarked). They will be alive for the 2010 session.

Here is the editorial…