In a frontal assault on the two-party system, the Washington State Grange has introduced Initiative 751 that would in effect transform Washington’s election system into an election by plurality along either the European style multi-party electoral scheme or, alternatively, a three-candidate election system.
Although billed as an initiative to “preserve the blanket primary,” the Grange Initiative in fact works a radical change in the way general elections will be conducted for most partisan offices in Washington State.
The purpose of a primary is to narrow the field of candidates so that one, and only one, representative of each political philosophy appears on the general election ballot. By providing a process through which a single champion of each party advances to the general election, the traditional two-party system provides voters with two choices and a majority selects the winning candidate and philosophy.
Under the Grange Initiative multiple candidates will advance to the general election, including, potentially, two candidates claiming to represent the viewpoints of each of the major parties. Had this been the case in the 2000 election, both Maria Cantwell and Deborah Senn would have appeared on the general election ballot as Democratic candidates alongside Senator Gorton and, presumably, enough Democrats would have voted for Ms. Senn to assure Senator Gorton’s re-election.
In effect, the Initiative creates two “Republican” parties and two “Democratic” parties, an “official” Republican and Democratic Party and an “affiliate” Republican and Democratic Party. The same would apply to the Libertarian Party, which, since the 2000 election, has major party status under Washington law, and will also hold primaries to nominate candidates under the current law.
As a “fail-safe” provision anticipating the likely unconstitutionality of the principle thrust of the initiative, the Grange Initiative transforms Washington’s partisan elections to multi-candidate elections.
Read the full Policy Brief here
