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Finally A Primary. Why Vote?

Commentary: WSW

Primary election Day, Sort of

It’s a great day for Washington citizens. They get to have a primary. A presidential primary. It’s not Iowa, or New Hampshire or New York, but not just because it’s late in the spring. Don’t look for CNN or Fox News satellite dish feeds popping up at the Secretary of State’s office as she dutifully announces the outcome. No one cares. Except for a sliver of the Republican delegates, all this ballot selects are voters who will sit down and for some reason, for the first time in state history, publicly declare their party affiliation.

Declare Your Party

For your vote to count, but it really won’t count if you are a D, and only a few if you’re an R, (more on this later), you have to declare, in writing and sign that you are either voting in the D primary or the R primary. Sorry Libertarians or Independents. Yep, your answer to the party question on the ballot will sit in the state party offices for sixty days! (From our Secretary of State’s (SOS) website: “Your party choice will be removed from your voter registration record after 60 days.”)  And we know the party won’t dare use that information to send us a painful number of solicitation mailings. Do they get our email addresses too?

Stalin, “I don’t care who votes, I care who counts the votes.”

So, when the ballots are all counted, and we who have voted have publicly declared, honestly or otherwise our party affiliation, we will know which candidate gets how many delegates to the national convention, right? Wrong! The Democrats aren’t even going to pay any attention to the primary ballots. They will assign their delegates to the national convention based on the caucuses held earlier this spring. Well, that’s not totally true either. Most of the Washington D.C. insiders, like members of Congress, what they call super-delegates, are disregarding the caucuses’ outcome because it does not advance the status quo, Clinton. Bernie Sanders ate her lunch here in Washington with over 70% of the vote! They must call them super-delegates because they supersede the voter’s choices. Or, they are so super important they don’t have to listen to their constituents, or something like that. If one were a cynic they would ask, “What’s new?”

It gets better. On the Republican side public confusion reigns. Washington State Secretary of State’s website claims that 100% of the Republican delegates to the national convention will be chosen by the primary results. (From our SOS’s website: “The Republican Party will use the Presidential Primary results to allocate 100% of their convention delegates. The Democratic Party will not use the Primary Election results to allocate any of their delegates. They will rely solely on the results of their Precinct Caucuses on March 26th.”)

However, the Tri-City Herald reported during the Republican state convention in Pasco, that “41 of the state’s 44 delegates for the national Republican convention will be picked at this week’s event (the state convention) to represent Washington Republicans’ preference for president…” Anyway, at least some of the R votes in the state primary will count, we think.

Who Paid For This Non-Primary, Primary?
You paid for it. And not just R’s and D’s. Independents paid for it, Libertarians paid for it, “Other” paid for it.  The taxpayers of Washington paid over Eleven $million dollars for this primary ballot to be sent out and counted. $11 million of state money for an activity that doesn’t count, excludes many different parties, and requires voters to declare which party they prefer.
What?
If caucuses are “outdated” why use them? If we have a primary what not use it? If only two parties get to play in a state funded primary why don’t the political party organizations pay for it?
This process does answer one question; why are so many Americans upset, disappointed and even angry about business-as-usual when it comes to politics and primary elections?

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