Re: “Party all the time” (Dec. 7, Opinion):
Washington’s top-two open primary system is good but not without flaws and several of the issues highlighted in the editorial are the direct result of these flaws.
Winning a top-two primary does not require appealing to the majority of the voters; sometimes less than 25% of the vote is sufficient. Primary voters tend to be ideologically driven party faithful, thus it is not surprising that elected officials work to satisfy them rather than their broader constituency.
The parties reward loyalty by discouraging prospective opponents, and without party support credible opponents can’t see a viable path to the general election from a top-two primary.
These problems, and many others, can be fixed by changing to a top-five primary with a ranked-choice voting general election, similar to the system used in Alaska. This system incentivizes candidates and elected officials to respond to the interests of the majority of the electorate. Nationwide, jurisdictions using ranked-choice voting report higher voter turnout and higher voter satisfaction with elections.
To change the behavior of politicians, we must change the incentives we provide them and ranked-choice voting does that. It is a fix for some of what is broken.
Robert Poore, Seattle, board member, FairVote Washington Foundation
