Oregon Public Broadcasting

Washington voters got their first chance to try out the state’s top two primary system Tuesday.  

Oregonians this November will decide whether to follow Washington’s lead in adopting the system.

Salem correspondent Chris Lehman looks at how Washington’s experience will inform the political debate over the measure in Oregon.

Phil Keisling was probably the only person in Oregon watching the Washington primary results instead of the Olympics Tuesday night.  But the former Oregon Secretary of State says the Olympics provide a good analogy for the way top two voting works.

Phil Keisling:  “No country is guaranteed to have a runner in the finals of the 100-meter dash.  Runners have to earn that right by their performance and then they go into the Gold Medal round to decide who gets the gold.”

That’s kind of the way top two voting works.  Every candidate can enter the first round, or the primary.  The top two finishers go on to the medal round, or the general election.

It doesn’t matter if those two people are from the same political party.

Oregon voters will decide whether to adopt the system when they vote on Measure 65 this November.  

Washington’s first top-two primary produced about eight races where the same party gets both slots on the November ballot.  But backers such as Keisling say that doesn’t matter.

Phil Keisling:  “Not every Democrat is the same as another Democrat, a Republican the same as every Republican.  But probably even more importantly, every voter got a chance in both rounds of those Washington elections to choose the candidate they think was best.”

Major political parties oppose the system.  In Washington they’re still threatening lawsuits despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court gave the state the go-ahead earlier this year.  

In Oregon a Democratic party spokesman declined to comment on the Washington election.  But Brianne Hyder of the Oregon Republican Party says it’s possible that the GOP will team up with Democrats to fight the proposal.

Brianne Hyder:  “I think the way Washington’s primary played out should be a lesson to Oregonians.  An open primary system is going to cause more problems than it’s going to solve.”

Hyder couldn’t point to any specific problem that arose in Washington’s primary.  But the major parties don’t want to be shut out of general election contests.  

That said, more than a third of all legislative races in Oregon this year will feature just one major party candidate under the current closed-primary system.

Kari Chisholm is a political consultant and writer for the left-leaning blog BlueOregon. He says Ballot Measure 65 would be a sea-change in Oregon politics.

Kari Chisholm:  “Whenever you start playing with the rules of the game there are unintended consequences. And what everyone’s trying to figure out right now is what are the consequences going to be with a reform like this and is it the best reform.”

Chisholm hasn’t decided whether to support a top two primary in Oregon.  But he says the debate over the issue might not resemble that of other ballot measures.

Kari Chisholm:  “With both the Democratic party and the Republican party opposing it, you’re not going to see that usual sort of left-right partisan fist-fight.  Instead it will be the parties saying this is a bad idea, and then some good-government activists and independent activists saying that it’s a good idea.”

The Independent Party, Oregon’s largest third party, hasn’t taken a position on the top-two primary.  And despite the similarity between Washington’s system and the Oregon proposal, the two states couldn’t be more different when it comes to how they’ve voted in the past.

For most of the twentieth century Washington voters could cross party lines and pick whatever candidates they wanted to in a primary, with the top candidate from both major political parties advancing to the general election.

In Oregon, voters have to state a party preference when they register.  And for now, they can only vote in the primary for candidates in the party they belong to.