Today is Presidential Primary Day in Washington and Idaho! Have you voted?

Today is Pres­i­den­tial Pri­ma­ry Day in Wash­ing­ton State and Ida­ho. Vot­ers have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the nom­i­nat­ing process­es of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can par­ties and influ­ence — at least on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side — how Wash­ing­ton and Ida­ho’s nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gates should be allocated.

Have you vot­ed yet? If you have, con­grat­u­la­tions on participating!

Now, go check up on your friends and fam­i­ly and make sure they’ve vot­ed, too.

Haven’t vot­ed yet? It’s time to get that bal­lot in!

You’ve only got a few hours left before time runs out to participate.

You should have received your bal­lot in the mail a few weeks ago from the coun­ty you reside in. If you did not receive a bal­lot, or if you have mis­placed your bal­lot, you should call your coun­ty elec­tions office to obtain a new ballot.

If you’re in Wash­ing­ton, you must check the box on the bal­lot return enve­lope stat­ing that you acknowl­edge that by par­tic­i­pat­ing, you are affil­i­at­ing with a polit­i­cal par­ty. Remem­ber, your choice is not precedent-setting.

You are not reg­is­ter­ing with a par­ty by affil­i­at­ing; you’re only com­mit­ting to par­tic­i­pat­ing in one par­ty’s nom­i­nat­ing process for the 2020 cycle.

Remem­ber, today’s pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is NOT an elec­tion. It is a nom­i­nat­ing event — an event asso­ci­at­ed with the process of select­ing the peo­ple who will car­ry the stan­dard for the coun­try’s major polit­i­cal par­ties for the incred­i­bly impor­tant posi­tion of Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. The major par­ties use nation­al con­ven­tions to for­mal­ly select their nom­i­nees, but in prac­tice, del­e­gates are typ­i­cal­ly allo­cat­ed in advance using nom­i­nat­ing events like today’s primaries.

You can learn more about the polit­i­cal par­ty dec­la­ra­tions and why they’re manda­to­ry for Wash­ing­ton vot­ers by read­ing this post.

In addi­tion to check­ing the box to affil­i­ate with a par­ty if you desire to par­tic­i­pate, on’t for­get to sign your bal­lot before putting it in a drop box or the mail. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, locate the near­est drop box to you by going here.

The first results are expect­ed to become avail­able after 8 PM Pacif­ic in Wash­ing­ton and after 8 PM Moun­tain in Idaho.

Oth­er states hold­ing nom­i­nat­ing events today include:

• Democ­rats Abroad (con­sid­ered a “state par­ty” by the DNC)
• North Dako­ta (Demo­c­ra­t­ic caucuses)
• Michi­gan (pres­i­den­tial primary)
• Mis­souri (pres­i­den­tial primary)
• Mis­sis­sip­pi (pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry and pri­ma­ry for state lev­el offices)

That’s not as many states as Super Tues­day last week, but still a big enough clus­ter that today’s results will be pret­ty darn mean­ing­ful to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field and to Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers. We invite you to join us tonight here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate for spe­cial live cov­er­age of Mini Super Tues­day 2020.