“We” being the people, that is. We’re going to lose this battle, but I think eventually we’ll win the war.

Washington state is one of the few states in the nation that doesn’t register voters by party. When you go to fill out voter registration paperwork, there’s a spot for your name, your address, and your signature. That’s it; there’s nowhere on the form for “Democratic Party” or “Republican Party” or any party. You’re just a voter.

Here, we prefer it this way. For years and years, our primary elections were wide-open; if there were three Democrats and two Republicans running for a given office, you could vote for any of them on the primary ballot. In the race for mayor you could vote for a Republican, in the race for Congressional Representative you could vote for a Democrat, in the race for governor you could vote for a Libertarian.

Then the top vote-getter from each party went on to the general election. This was known as the “blanket primary”.

The political parties hate this. They live in fear that voters from the other party might intenionally nominate someone that is more likely to lose in the general election- for example, Democrats in a year where their governor candidate is pretty well determined (or if there’s only one person running in the primary) might cross over and vote for the crappiest Republican they could find. Then the crappy Republican might win the primary, only to get their clock cleaned in the general election (when, presumably, all those Democratic voters would return and vote for the Dem.)

Thing is, the people LOVE it. There’s plenty of times when they’ll cross party lines and vote for candidates. They don’t want to be locked in to just one party’s slate of primary candidates, or limited to them. What if they want to vote for a Libertarian in one race, but for most of the races the Libertarian Party doesn’t even have anyone running? Now the voter is stuck and can’t express an opinion in those other races, at least not in the primary election.

In California, the parties got this type of system wiped out. The issue went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and they decided that the parties’ right to free association outweighed the voters’ rights to be able to choose who they want- even if that means crossing parties in the primary election.

Well, here in Washington, we didn’t take kindly to that. We passed a citizen’s initiative that created a new kind of primary, where the voter could still vote for whoever they wanted. Here’s a short explanation from the Seattle Times:

The top-two system, approved by voters in 2004, allows candidates to designate their own party preference on the ballot and sends the two top vote-getters to the general election — even if they are from the same party.

The state’s political parties fought the law, saying they had the right to decide which candidates can run under their party label. A federal judge and appeals court agreed, tossing the primary before it could take effect.

The deal with the thing is that the candidates’ choice of political party would be listed. The political parties claim that isn’t fair to them, because only the parties have the right to declare who their candidates are. Since the voters can vote for anyone, the parties say that they aren’t in control of their own “nomination” process in the primary, and therefore the overall process isn’t fair to them.

To me, the ideal solution is simple- remove party affiliation entirely from the voting process. Candidates should simply be listed by their name on ALL ballots and the voters should, in both the primary and general, be able to vote for whoever they damn well please. If the parties want to have an “official” party candidate, they can have their own process for figuring out who that is- caucuses or their own election or nominating conventions or whatever.

If a candidate wants to call himself or herself a “Republican” or “Democrat” or whatever in ads, on yard signs, whatever, the party can have its own rules for use of what is essentially a trademark or brand.

But when it comes to the ballot, just list ‘em by name and let the voters decide.

That, I think, is what we’re headed for. The issue comes up because the Supreme Court today heard arguments in the case that the parties brought against the Washington law (which hasn’t been in effect, as a federal judge tossed it out pending legal challenges). And from the description of the questions the justices asked, it sounds like this present version of Washington’s law is headed for being struck down by the Court.

If and when that happens, I predict that the Washington Grange and a collection of voters who think like me will wind up getting yet another initiative through that simply wipes party preference, affiliation, etc. out of the voting process completely.

Which means that the political parties, who’re desperately in the wrong and against the desires of the voters here (Initiative 872 wound up winning with almost 60% of the vote) are going to wind up with exactly what they do NOT want. Too bad. Jerks.

Myself? I’m a firm believer that the entire NATION should be doing this kind of thing. Political party affiliation is, to me, something that shouldn’t be on the ballot at all; people should simply be registered voters and should always be free to vote for whoever they want, whether it’s a primary election or a general election.

There’s a historical rundown of this on the Washington Secretary of State’s web site.