Voting in Washington’s 2024 presidential primary: Your questions answered

This week, elec­tions offi­cials in Wash­ing­ton’s thir­ty-nine coun­ties will mail out bal­lots for the 2024 Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial pri­maries. Vot­ers who would like to par­tic­i­pate in the nom­i­nat­ing process for either par­ty must cast their bal­lot and return it no lat­er than March 12th, 2024, the vot­ing deadline.

The pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is a spe­cial event in state pol­i­tics that only takes place once every four years. Because it’s the sub­ject of qua­dren­ni­al con­fu­sion, we’ve pre­pared a Q&A to help to demys­ti­fy it. We hope this infor­ma­tion is help­ful to reg­u­lar and new read­ers alike. If you have a ques­tion the dis­cus­sion below does­n’t answer, please feel free to leave a com­ment and we’ll respond.

Q&A: The 2024 Washington State presidential primary

Q: What is the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry? Why do we have it?

A: The pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is a way for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to express a pref­er­ence for a can­di­date seek­ing the nom­i­na­tion of one the nation’s two major polit­i­cal par­ties. Although the state clas­si­fies it as a “spe­cial cir­cum­stances elec­tion,” it is actu­al­ly not an elec­tion at all, but rather a nom­i­nat­ing event.

When you vote in the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry, you are express­ing a pref­er­ence as to which can­di­date you want Wash­ing­ton’s share of nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gates allo­cat­ed to at either the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion or the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion. We have the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry because cast­ing a bal­lot through the state’s elec­tions infra­struc­ture is the eas­i­est way for lots of peo­ple to express a pref­er­ence. Both par­ties have pledged to use the results of this year’s pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry to allo­cate their del­e­gates, so the results will be binding.

Q: Does this year’s pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry real­ly matter? 

A: Since the results are bind­ing, as men­tioned in the pri­or answer, it does mat­ter, although at this junc­ture, nei­ther par­ty’s nom­i­na­tion looks par­tic­u­lar­ly con­test­ed. Joe Biden has no strong oppo­si­tion for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion and Don­ald Trump has just a sin­gle rival left — Nik­ki Haley — who has­n’t per­formed very well in ear­ly states. Biden and Trump seem like­ly to win Wash­ing­ton’s primary.

Q: What will the bal­lot look like? Who will be on it?

A: The bal­lot will have two columns: a Demo­c­ra­t­ic col­umn, with a blue head­ing, and a Repub­li­can col­umn, with a red heading.

The fol­low­ing choic­es will appear on the Demo­c­ra­t­ic side:

• Joseph R Biden Jr
• Dean Phillips
• Mar­i­anne Williamson
• Uncom­mit­ted Delegates
• ___________________

The fol­low­ing choic­es will appear on the Repub­li­can side:

• Chris Christie
• Ron DeSan­tis
• Nik­ki Haley
• Vivek Ramaswamy
• Don­ald J. Trump
• ___________________

The final choice is a line where you can write in a candidate.

To vote, sim­ply fill in the oval for one of the choic­es and then place the bal­lot in the secu­ri­ty enve­lope. Place the secu­ri­ty enve­lope into the return enve­lope, sign it, date it, and mark the box indi­cat­ing that you under­stand you are affil­i­at­ing with the par­ty whose nom­i­nat­ing process you wish to par­tic­i­pate in, then return your bal­lot to a drop box or post office. (To ensure deliv­ery, NPI rec­om­mends against putting your bal­lot in a mail recep­ta­cle that isn’t at a post office.)

Q: Who decid­ed which names would appear on the ballot?

A: The major polit­i­cal par­ties did. Each par­ty has a process that spells out what a can­di­date must do to qual­i­fy for its col­umn on the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry bal­lot.  State law gives them the par­ties this respon­si­bil­i­ty, rec­og­niz­ing that it is their First Amend­ment right to deter­mine who their can­di­dates should be. The Sec­re­tary of State sim­ply uti­lizes the list of names that the par­ties provide.

Q: Why is there an option called “Uncom­mit­ted Del­e­gates” on only one side of the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry ballot?

A: Under the rules of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, “uncom­mit­ted” is a legit­i­mate pres­i­den­tial pref­er­ence. This is the option you should fill out if you are not sure or unde­cid­ed, but you want to par­tic­i­pate in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s process. It’s sort of like the “not sure” option in a pub­lic opin­ion research sur­vey, but in this con­text, it could count for some­thing. If enough Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers feel sim­i­lar­ly, there will be uncom­mit­ted del­e­gates at the 2024 DNC from Wash­ing­ton State.

Q: It looks like the bal­lot con­tains names of can­di­dates who have dropped out. Why weren’t those can­di­dates’ names removed?

A: That’s cor­rect. As of press time, Mar­i­anne Williamson, Chris Christie, Ron DeSan­tis, and Vivek Ramaswamy had sus­pend­ed their pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns. But you can still vote for them because they sub­mit­ted the req­ui­site paper­work, sig­na­tures, and fees to qual­i­fy for Wash­ing­ton’s pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry. State law does not allow sub­mit­ted names to be removed once they are submitted.

While you can vote for a can­di­date who is no longer run­ning an active cam­paign, can­di­dates who have dropped out often don’t attract enough sup­port from oth­er vot­ers to earn any nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gates. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, for instance, has a min­i­mum via­bil­i­ty thresh­old of 15%. If a can­di­date can­not meet that with­in a giv­en state, they won’t get any of that state’s delegates.

Q: Why am I only allowed to vote for one can­di­date from one party?

A: The major polit­i­cal par­ties’ rules require that vot­ers not par­tic­i­pate in anoth­er par­ty’s nom­i­nat­ing process. Fur­ther­more, nei­ther par­ty uses a vot­ing method like ranked choice vot­ing or approval vot­ing that would allow you to express a pref­er­ence for more than one can­di­date. Accord­ing­ly, you can only vote one par­ty’s bal­lot — your bal­lot will be invalid if you fill out an oval in both columns.

Q: If I vote in the pri­ma­ry, will the par­ty I affil­i­at­ed with get my name?

A: Yes. If you vote in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty will get your name. And if you vote in the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, the Repub­li­can Par­ty will get your name. The par­ty whose pri­ma­ry you did­n’t vote in will also be able to fig­ure out that you vot­ed in the oppos­ing par­ty’s pri­ma­ry. Please note that the dis­clo­sure of the list of vot­ed in the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry to the polit­i­cal par­ties is express­ly autho­rized by state law. This is in keep­ing with the idea that how you vote is a secret, but whether or not you vot­ed is a mat­ter of pub­lic record.

Q: I don’t want to affil­i­ate with either par­ty. What should I do?

A: If you are a true inde­pen­dent who does­n’t want to affil­i­ate with either par­ty, you should recy­cle your pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry bal­lot rather than return­ing it. You are under no legal or moral oblig­a­tion to par­tic­i­pate. As men­tioned above, the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry is not an elec­tion. You are not vot­ing to allo­cate Wash­ing­ton’s Elec­toral Col­lege votes if you par­tic­i­pate in the pri­ma­ry — rather, you are vot­ing to allo­cate one of the major par­ties’ nation­al con­ven­tion delegates.

Q: Now that the par­ties are using the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry to allo­cate del­e­gates, are cau­cus­es and state con­ven­tions a thing of the past?

A: No. The par­ties use the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry to allo­cate their del­e­gates, but they still hold cau­cus­es and con­ven­tions for oth­er pur­pos­es, like adopt­ing plat­forms and res­o­lu­tions, hear­ing from can­di­dates, and fundraising.

And while the pri­ma­ry elim­i­nates the need to stand in a gym, liv­ing room, or school cafe­te­ria for hours just to express a pres­i­den­tial pref­er­ence, Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who are inter­est­ed in going to a nation­al con­ven­tion need to engage with the par­ty of their choice to par­tic­i­pate in del­e­gate selec­tion. The rules for the elec­tion of del­e­gates and the time­frames for run­ning dif­fer by party.

• Repub­li­cans: To file as a Repub­li­can can­di­date for del­e­gate to the 2024 RNC in Mil­wau­kee (July 15th — 18th), you have to pay a mon­e­tary fee and file by April 12th. The form to do so is here.
• Democ­rats: To file as a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date for del­e­gate to the 2024 DNC in Chica­go (August 19th — 22nd), you must declare by May 12th for the con­gres­sion­al dis­trict lev­el and June 2nd for the state lev­el. There is no fee. Del­e­gate fil­ing has not yet begun, but you may preg­is­ter and let the par­ty know of your inter­est using this form.

Repub­li­cans will hold their state con­ven­tion in April, in Spokane; Democ­rats will hold their state con­ven­tion in June, at a loca­tion to be announced.

Have a question we didn’t answer above?

Please leave a com­ment and we’ll respond! Hap­py voting.