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Additional Text for the 09/23/06 Alumni Sandstorm 
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>>From: Dave Hanthorn ('63)

Re: Primary Elections

A long time ago in our country, the political parties "hand-picked" the
candidates that they would put up for the (general) election in the
November. In practice, this would often mean the selections would be made
by a small group of people (usually nearly all men back in those days) in
the infamous "smoke filled rooms". 

After a while, it was decided that the parties might select better
candidates for the general election if they would let all the people that
belonged to a particular party vote for the candidates that their party
would put up for the November (general) election, and thus the "primary"
election was born. 

In most of the states in the Union, people had to officially register for
the party of their choice to vote in that party's primary election (and
that is where the terms "registered Democrat" or "registered Republican"
came from) and your party affiliation was thus a matter of public record. 

A small handful of states decided that a primary voter wouldn't have to
register with the party to vote in that party's primary, but instead
would just have to choose a ballot from one party or the other to vote in
the party's primary election. 

An even smaller number of states (and Washington was one of these) chose
to have what is referred to as an "open primary", in which the candidates
from both parties would be listed on one primary ballot, and voters from
either party could help pick the candidates in a given race that would
represent the party in the general election in November. The political
parties never liked this method of choosing their candidates, because
they didn't think it was at all fair to have voters from the other party
helping to pick their candidates to represent the party in the general
election. There were many instances in the history of Washington State
where the voters from one party would "cross over" and vote for a
particularly bad candidate from the other party in a particular race,
thus giving the candidate from their own party a better chance in the
November general election. 

A few years back (in an effort to alleviate this inherent unfairness in
the "open primary" system) both the Democrat and Republican Parties here
in Washington sued the State to put an end the "open primary" system. The
case was appealed all the way up to the Washington State Supreme Court,
where the Justices decided in favor of the political parties, and the
"open primary" was then dead in this State, and it was left up to the
State officials to decide on a new way to hold the primary election in
Washington. 

Many different ideas were "kicked around" (some of them were very "hare-
brained" ideas right from the "git-go") but finally it was decided to put
the candidates from both parties on the same ballot, but to require the
voter to chose one party or the other and only vote for candidates from
that one party (thus saving money by not having to print a separate
ballot for each political party).

This year was the first year that we had this "new" method of holding a
primary election, and because it was new to us, and because it was so
inadequately explained by our State officials and our news media, may
voters were confused and angered by the "new" system. On the other hand,
voters that have moved here from other states where they have done either
"registered" or "separate ballot" primary voting all along, can't figure
out what all the ruckus is about. They have been used to voting just in
their own party's primary elections for many years.

The political parties would have really liked to have had the "party
registration" system of primary voting, as this method really assures
that only people with a strong adherence to the party get to help choose
the party's candidates for the general election in November, and it makes
it far easier to target their own voters with election information about
their own candidates and to do fund raising for the party. However, the
voters in the State of Washington have grown far too used to having their
independence from the parties (because of the "open primary") to have
ever settled for such a system.

I hope this (too long) explanation of our "new" primary election system
has been of some help to you. I think that as the years go by and we get
more used to this system, it won't seem so "foreign" to us and thus not
so "troubling".

-Dave Hanthorn (GMC '63) from cold and wet Mercer Island, where I am 
          already missing the warm days of summer.
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