No harm in marking a presidential ballot

Most of us have our presidential ballots in hand, and the question is — fill it out or toss it before the May 24 election date? The short answer is, what’s the harm?

The one real obstacle for many voters is the requirement that one sign the oath declaring oneself to be a Republican or Democrat. Under federal election laws, parties have a legal right to decide who picks their nominees — and a screen to keep out members of rival parties from crossing over to vote is enshrined in law.

Beyond that, the question is what difference voting makes. The answer is it might not make any difference.

This year, Donald Trump is the GOP’s presumptive nominee, having racked up nearly enough delegates to win on the Republican convention’s first floor vote.

But Washington Republicans, many of whom are far more moderate than Trump, can register that the Evergreen State won’t stand for the bigoted, misogynistic views Trump has spouted at various times on the campaign trail. Already, U.S. Senate hopeful Chris Vance has distanced himself from Trump, saying he won’t vote for the presumptive party nominee.

However the vote lands, the primary vote results are binding on the Washington Republican Party. It has pledged to apportion more than 40 state delegates based on the proportional vote given to each GOP candidate in the primary.

On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders continues to chase Hillary Clinton in the delegate count, but the vote won’t matter a whit — except to show a possible difference in preferences between Democratic activists, who powered the caucus process strongly in Sanders’ favor, and Democratic voters that are less active but might cast their mail-in ballots.

All of the Democrats’ delegates are apportioned via the caucuses or through party officials known as super-delegates.

We’ve been on record for a while in thinking this primary should have been run sooner — closer to March 1 — and that Democrats should have made it binding for the selection of delegates.

But Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican, was stymied in her effort to win support from Democrats for a date change in 2015.

And lawmakers, who might have scuttled the primary as they have in some past election cycles, could not agree on canceling the election to save an estimated $11.5 million.

So the vote goes on. Hold your nose, if you must, but vote — if you want to register your views.

You may feel better if you do.

If not, there’s always the November ballot.

This story was originally published May 15, 2016 at 7:44 PM with the headline "No harm in marking a presidential ballot."