Top-two primary system troubles parties

But Zack Smith, an Olympia resident who serves on the Democrats' executive board from the 9th Congressional District, predicted his party will do nominating conventions separate from the ongoing presidential caucus process.

"As far as I can see it's open and shut," Smith said of the nominating conventions. "What we need to be able to do is let people know which candidate is the choice of the party."

Ballot design

Reed, meanwhile, said he expects to address the ballot design in the next few weeks. It's unclear how he'll designate a candidate's party preference — whether by descriptors or by actual party affiliations claimed by candidates.

Reed said he refuses to designate which candidates have the endorsement of a party or who won "nomination" by conventions. He cited a footnote in the Supreme Court ruling that says, "The First Amendment does not give political parties a right to have their nominees designated as such on the ballot."

He also plans to talk to political party representatives before announcing his decisions.

Whatever he does by early June, Reed said, "It has to be basically fair to the parties and not be confusing to the voters. He said it'll be "basically what we've had all along in the state of Washington."

If the political parties challenge Reed's ballot decisions, it probably will be after the election.

In its ruling, the high court found I-872 was not unconstitutional but left for another day whether the top-two primary would violate parties' rights once put into practice.

Trademark issue

The court also left unanswered challenges by the Libertarian Party that its party name is a trademark, and also minor party concerns about ballot access.

Esser said he thinks the Republican and Democratic parties have "pseudo trademark" arguments they can mount similar to that of Libertarians.

Esser added the state's Montana pick-a-party system, which required voters to choose either a Democratic or Republican ballot, had safeguards against rogue candidates being selected by crossover voters; the top-two system does not.

But Reed said parties have never had the kind of control over candidates they like to claim, and he cited the success of Democratic Sen. Tim Sheldon, who has been labeled a Republican by members of his own party and who also won election as Mason County commissioner as an independent. Sheldon keeps getting elected despite opposition from his party, and now with a top-two primary, he'll run as a Democrat this fall for a second term as commissioner.

The fight over the top-two system goes back to 2000, when Washington had a blanket primary that let voters split tickets, picking one party's candidate for one race, and another party's candidate for another. But after the Supreme Court threw out California's similar system, the parties in Washington sued to overturn the blanket primary here, too.

The parties prevailed, which led to legislative efforts to create a remedy, including the top-two runoff primary and the Montana-style nominating primary.

After then-Gov. Gary Locke's veto of top-two legislation left the Montana system in place in 2004, the state Grange sponsored I-872 to enshrine the top-two system as the next-best alternative to the blanket primary.