Why there are party oaths on Washington’s presidential primary ballot return envelope

At the end of last week, bal­lots for Wash­ing­ton State’s 2020 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry began land­ing in the mail­box­es of the state’s four and half mil­lion reg­is­tered vot­ers. The pri­ma­ry — which will be uti­lized by both the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can par­ties for nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gate allo­ca­tion pur­pos­es for the first time in state his­to­ry — will run until March 10th, the dead­line to return ballots.

As in the past, the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry con­sists of two bal­lots: a Demo­c­ra­t­ic bal­lot and a Repub­li­can bal­lot. They both appear on the same piece of paper.

Vot­ers may vote either bal­lot, but for their vote to count, they must affirm a dec­la­ra­tion that appears on the return bal­lot envelope.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic dec­la­ra­tion states:

I declare that my par­ty pref­er­ence is the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and I will not par­tic­i­pate in the nom­i­na­tion process of any oth­er polit­i­cal par­ty for the 2020 Pres­i­den­tial election.

The Repub­li­can dec­la­ra­tion states:

I declare that I am a Repub­li­can and I have not par­tic­i­pat­ed and will not par­tic­i­pate in the 2020 precinct cau­cus or con­ven­tion sys­tem of any oth­er party.

If you’re won­der­ing why these oaths are there, the answer is pret­ty sim­ple: the par­ties want you to under­stand that when you vote their pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry bal­lot, you are choos­ing to affil­i­ate with them and par­tic­i­pate in par­ty politics.

Although it is some­times called an elec­tion, the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is not an elec­tion at all because no one is being elect­ed. It is pure­ly a nom­i­nat­ing exer­cise. The major par­ties will use the results to deter­mine how many del­e­gates to allo­cate to each can­di­date com­pet­ing for their par­ty’s pres­i­den­tial nomination.

Wash­ing­ton State, as a mat­ter of pub­lic pol­i­cy, has opt­ed to hold a pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry every four years and encour­ages the par­ties to use the results to allo­cate their del­e­gates instead of rely­ing on cau­cus­es, which are not as inclusive.

Wash­ing­ton does­n’t have par­ty vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, so it would not be pos­si­ble for the state to restrict par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pri­ma­ry to vot­ers who are reg­is­tered as Democ­rats or Repub­li­cans, even if the par­ties want­ed the state to do this.

In lieu of this, state law affords the par­ties the oppor­tu­ni­ty to require that vot­ers be pre­sent­ed with a manda­to­ry state­ment of par­tic­i­pa­tion that they must affir­ma­tive­ly con­sent to in order for their vote to influ­ence the nomination.

The lan­guage of the oaths that you see was sup­plied by the par­ties and it is required to be includ­ed under state law at the par­ties’ request.

The dec­la­ra­tions are in a sense as much for the vot­ers’ pro­tec­tion as for the par­ties’ ben­e­fit. But many peo­ple don’t see it that way.

Elec­tions offi­cials say that every four years, they get phone calls, let­ters, and emails from a con­tin­gent of vot­ers grum­bling about the oaths.

As Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman put it: “Every time we do this, peo­ple have a very vis­cer­al, angry reac­tion to hav­ing to pub­licly declare.”

For­tu­nate­ly, there’s a sim­ple solu­tion for those Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who don’t want to pub­licly declare a par­ty pref­er­ence: Don’t return a bal­lot.

Since the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is a nom­i­nat­ing exer­cise, not an elec­tion, your vot­ing record will be unaf­fect­ed if you choose not to participate.

In fact, in past years, that is what most Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have done. Turnout in the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry has nev­er exceed­ed fifty per­cent before.

Wyman, how­ev­er, is bet­ting that turnout this year will sur­pass fifty percent.

We think that pre­dic­tion is awful­ly rosy. Our guess, based on past turnouts, is that turnout will be clos­er to forty per­cent. And that num­ber — forty per­cent — is actu­al­ly what King Coun­ty Elec­tions is pre­dict­ing for the state’s largest county.

Appear­ing on Dori Mon­son’s show, Wyman declared that she has decid­ed not to return a bal­lot her­self in sol­i­dar­i­ty with irri­tat­ed vot­ers.

“I’m going to actu­al­ly not par­tic­i­pate because the Repub­li­can Par­ty bal­lot has one can­di­date, so I either do a write-in or I pick Don­ald Trump, but either way, I have to actu­al­ly divulge, to a degree, who I’m vot­ing for, to be able to have a secret bal­lot, iron­i­cal­ly,” Wyman said. “In protest, I’m very frus­trat­ed that we don’t have an unaf­fil­i­at­ed option.”

When Wyman says “I’m very frus­trat­ed that we don’t have an unaf­fil­i­at­ed option,” what she means is that she’s upset that the Leg­is­la­ture wise­ly refused to cre­ate a third “straw poll” bal­lot that would appear along­side the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can Par­ty bal­lots. Wyman thinks hav­ing a straw poll bal­lot would be real­ly super duper darn awe­some, because it would sup­pos­ed­ly allow peo­ple to express a pres­i­den­tial pref­er­ence with­out hav­ing to mark a par­ty declaration.

In real­i­ty, though, pre­sent­ing vot­ers with an “unaf­fil­i­at­ed option” would be per­pe­trat­ing a con against the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton State.

Count­less vot­ers would be wrong­ly led to believe that they could have it both ways (express a pref­er­ence for who should be nom­i­nat­ed with­out hav­ing to affil­i­ate with a par­ty), when in fact that would not be the case… because nei­ther par­ty would use the results of the “straw poll” bal­lot to allo­cate any delegates.

The nation­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, for its part, has rules explic­it­ly for­bid­ding this sort of duplic­i­ty. State par­ties that want to uti­lize a state-run pri­ma­ry can only select that option if there is no oth­er com­pet­ing bal­lot for vot­ers to choose from. Straw-poll schemes like the one Wyman favors are a non­starter for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

In oth­er words: if Wyman had got­ten her way and the “unaf­fil­i­at­ed bal­lot” option had been includ­ed, what would have hap­pened is that the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty would have been forced to use cau­cus­es again for del­e­gate allo­ca­tion in 2020. There would­n’t have been a switch to a pri­ma­ry at all.

Wyman knows this. And yet, she con­tin­ues to pub­licly advo­cate for a scheme that she is aware would cause the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty to be unable to use the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry in the future (2024, 2028, 2032, etc.)

Wyman has remarked that maybe the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee will alter its rules in future cycles, but there is no like­li­hood of this what­so­ev­er. The DNC is not going to sanc­tion pri­maries that have a com­pet­ing “straw poll” option because the DNC would be endors­ing decep­tion in its own nom­i­nat­ing process if it did so.

Vot­ers jus­ti­fi­ably expect that when they vote a bal­lot, it counts for some­thing. Adop­tion of Wyman’s scheme would entail slap­ping a mean­ing­less pub­lic opin­ion research sur­vey on the bal­lot, right next to the par­ty bal­lots that actu­al­ly count, and thus sanc­tion­ing fraud and decep­tion against vot­ers inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the selec­tion of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic or Repub­li­can nominees.

A true cham­pi­on of pres­i­den­tial pri­maries — which Wyman claims to be — would not engage in poi­son pill advo­ca­cy like this. A true cham­pi­on of pri­ma­ry adop­tion would instead explain to peo­ple that a pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is a nom­i­nat­ing exer­cise and the par­ties have a First Amend­ment right to free assem­bly and a right to require that the peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in their pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing process­es acknowl­edge that by doing so, they’re par­tic­i­pat­ing in par­ty politics.

It is very regret­table that Wyman keeps bring­ing up the con­cept of a “straw poll” bal­lot when she makes these appear­ances on shows like Dori Monson’s.

She did get one impor­tant thing right, and that was to explain that the oaths are there because the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is a nom­i­nat­ing exercise.

“This is the only time Wash­ing­ton vot­ers have to actu­al­ly declare their par­ty affil­i­a­tion, and that is because they are nom­i­nat­ing the stan­dard-bear­er for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic or Repub­li­can Par­ty, and the par­ties want to be sure that it’s actu­al par­ty mem­bers who are doing it, not just ran­dom peo­ple,” Wyman said.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, she then char­ac­ter­ized the pri­ma­ry as an elec­tion run by the parties:

She added that the pri­ma­ry elec­tion is run by the par­ties, not the state.

This is incor­rect on both counts. As explained above, the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is not an elec­tion, and it’s not run by the par­ties… rather, it’s a nom­i­nat­ing exer­cise run by the state and coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials on the par­ties’ behalf.

It is total­ly under­stand­able that there are some Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who are not enam­ored with polit­i­cal par­ties and do not wish to par­tic­i­pate in par­ty politics.

If that’s you, and the prospect of affirm­ing a par­tic­i­pa­tion oath both­ers you, then go ahead and recy­cle your pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry bal­lot. Alter­na­tive­ly, you can hold your nose, grit your teeth, and affil­i­ate with a par­ty for a moment in time. Remem­ber, mark­ing the dec­la­ra­tion does­n’t align you with a polit­i­cal par­ty forever.