Our Voice: Plan to move up presidential primary makes sense

While communities across the state are in the final election stretch for local races, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman is already thinking ahead to 2020.

She is still on a mission to move Washington state’s presidential primary election from its insignificant date of the fourth Tuesday in May to a more influential time in early March.

And in a nod to the state’s traditionally independent culture, she also wants to bring back the unaffiliated ballot. That way people can vote for a presidential candidate without declaring a political party preference.

“We get so many calls,” she told the Herald editorial board recently, “People hate having to declare a party preference. They think it should be private.”

Wyman was on an Eastern Washington tour recently promoting her goals for next year’s legislative session when she dropped by to talk with us about her proposals.

We have backed her suggested election reforms in the past, and we continue that support.

Last year, Washington’s presidential primary was a dud — and it cost $12 million.

Wyman had tried to move the date up in time to make our election results more important, but state Democratic leaders wouldn’t go along with the change.

By the time it was our state’s turn to vote for presidential nominees, the Republican and Democratic results were already decided.

On the Republican side, everyone but Donald Trump had dropped out.

On the other side, Hillary Clinton won the presidential primary with 53 percent of the statewide vote. But state Democrats ignored the tally.

They had held their caucuses in March, and since Bernie Sanders was the clear choice, they ended up allocating all their delegates to him.

The parties are not legally bound to consider the voters’ top choices in the presidential primary, and Democrats never have.

Now, however, new developments have emerged that might help convince lawmakers and party leaders to adopt Wyman’s plan.

California recently decided to move its state presidential primary election up three months — from June 2 to March 3 in 2020. This means the country’s most populous state will no longer be considered irrelevant, and that likely will force presidential candidates to campaign harder and earlier on the West Coast.

Like Wyman, election officials in Oregon are now talking about joining California in moving up the presidential primary election to March 3. If the three states formed a block, we could be part of a powerful force.

Candidates likely would be more inclined to visit, which means they would have to brush up on issues that affect the Western edge of the country. Our voters could feel part of the process — instead of a too-late addition that didn’t matter.

As for the unaffiliated ballot, we know the political party hardliners are not keen on the idea.

For years, open primaries allowed Washington voters to pick any mix of candidates, regardless of the “R” or “D” behind their names.

But political parties wanted more control of their candidate choices, and the courts have supported that. In 1992 Washington held its first Presidential Preference Primary, in which voters had to declare a party choice in order for their vote to count. Independent Washingtonians have disliked it ever since.

Wyman has been wanting to make changes to the state’s presidential primary election for some time. She isn’t giving up, and will try to sway lawmakers this session to go along with her proposals.

We think they should. Her suggestions are an improvement to the process, and will engage more voters.

This story was originally published October 31, 2017 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Plan to move up presidential primary makes sense."