A party's just a party

Election process a tangled, expensive web

I am amazed at the way that third parties are dismissed in Washington state. Recent articles and letters in The Seattle Times make it sound like it is an easy process to get on the ballot. A minor party can just hold a convention and choose candidates, right?

Actually, the reverse is true; our Legislature has changed ballot access in our state from one of the easiest to one of the hardest for a minor party. If we wanted to run a full slate of candidates as the Republicans and Democrats do, we would have to gather more than 75,000 signatures in one week in May. (Then we would have each candidate's filing fees to pay).

The process of ballot access and the general election have become a barrier for democracy and an expensive, tangled web that could be resolved if everyone stopped trying to micromanage third-party competition and instead removed the taxpayer-funded primary altogether, leaving the process of selecting party candidates to be paid for and organized by the individual party before the general election. They can call it a primary if they want to, but political parties should stop charging taxpayers for the state-funded popularity contest, which amounts to free advertising for all candidates in the primary.

With modern technology and polling systems, why should taxpayers pay to have each party determine who represents them? Not only do so few registered voters go out and vote in the primary each election, but the party should be the sole entity responsible for who represents them.

Lastly, we could then improve the voting process by using Approval Voting or instant-runoff voting with a clear paper trail in the general election. If you want to inspire people to get out and vote again, we have to make the voting process transparent and exciting. End the wasted-vote syndrome by allowing people to vote for anyone they approve of being able to do the job.

Now, about those debates ...

Scott Lindsley is chair of the Libertarian Party of Washington State.