Voters in the dark about new primary

• Auditor working with other county elections officials to create simple single ballot format.

By Ann Strosnider, Sun Staff

Despite well-publicized court cases and a lengthy debate in the state Legislature, 82 percent of the state's voters have no idea that the state's primary ballot will look different this year, Kitsap County Auditor Karen Flynn told a small gathering at the county fairgrounds Thursday.

She said studies done by Secretary of State Sam Reed showed low voter awareness of the change.

"The primary will be different this year in the state of Washington," she said. "And we know it will be controversial with citizens."

She said the issue has not yet surfaced on voters' radar screens. But she and elections officials in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties are working together to create a common ballot style for Central Puget Sound voters and to educate the public about the changes. The state will also spend $1.7 million to publicize the new primary, Flynn said.

Although in most other states voters must declare a party preference, Washington voters have always resisted identifying themselves by party, Flynn said.

Washington's old blanket primary, in which voters could cross party lines and vote for any candidate of their choice, was declared unconstitutional by the courts. The Legislature this year adopted a new open-primary, private-choice system modeled loosely on Montana's.

Key to making sure your vote counts, Flynn said, is marking the top of the ballot with your party preference. Party choice will not be recorded, but if you fail to make a choice, none of your votes in partisan races will count. On the other hand, if you mark a preference for, say, the Democratic Party and vote for both Democrats and Republicans, your votes for Democrats will be counted.

Flynn said she's especially concerned because in Kitsap County, with 126,000 registered voters, 70 percent vote by mail. They won't be able to rely on election workers for help with the new ballots.

Flynn said she at first favored a primary in which voters would be given four different ballots one for Democrats, one for Republicans, one for Libertarians and one for nonpartisan races only. The voter would then choose one of them and discard the others. The partisan ballots would include the nonpartisan races the fourth ballot would be only for those who wished to declare no party choice.

In focus groups conducted by King County, voters said they felt the four-ballot system would waste a lot of paper. They preferred a single-ballot system, with the voter marking a party preference.

Practice tests with voters showed they understood the single-ballot and four-ballot systems equally well, Flynn said.

The single ballot for the Sept. 14 primary will list Democratic candidates first, then Republicans, then Libertarians, followed by the nonpartisan candidates. Flynn said the order is determined according to which party received the most votes statewide in the last election.

John Gideon, representing the nonpartisan voter watchdog group VotersUnite.org, said he was concerned about plans to shade parts of the ballot red for Democrats, green for Republicans and blue for Libertarians.

He said it would be confusing for voters because the Democratic-leaning states are known as the "blue states" and the Republican-leaning ones are known as the "red states." He also felt a three-color ballot would add to printing costs.

Flynn said the colors were drawn by lot and would be used sparingly to make ballot choices more clear. The final look and wording of the ballot will not be determined until after next week, when candidates file for election.

Registration deadline approaching

The last day to register to vote before the Sept. 14 primary is Aug. 14 except for in-person registration at the courthouse. The last day for that is Aug. 30.

For election information, click on elections at the Kitsap County government Web site: www.kitsapgov.com