State’s Republicans are benefiting from Washington top-two system for primaries causing Democrat uproar

From Ballot Access News:

Daily Kos has this article about the August 2, 2016 Washington state primary, and the Treasurer’s race. Three Democrats and two Republicans filed. Even though 52% of the electorate voted for one of the three Democrats, only two Republicans will be on the November ballot, because they came in first and second.

The Daily Kos story properly blames the top-two system for the result, which is that voters who want a Democrat to be Treasurer are disenfranchised in November. Washington state permits write-ins in the general election, and conceivably a Democrat could launch a write-in campaign. But the state won’t let any of the three Democrats who filed in the primary be write-in candidates. Thanks to Jan Tucker for the link.

From the Daily Kos article:

We’ve seen this same phenomenon before, but this is the first single-party statewide election ever to take place in Washington. That’s just terrible for democracy. California also uses a top-two primary, and there, polls show that many Republican voters simply plan to sit out this years’s Senate race between Democrats Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. But at least we know that California, a very blue state, would likely have elected a Democrat to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer anyway. Washington, by contrast, almost certainly would have voted in another Democrat as treasurer, so the situation here is particularly perverse.