"Sense of the room" poll: Eliminating the primary in Washington State

[TechBear_Seattle]

Some friends have discussed floating an initiative that would eliminate the September primary. In it's place, major parties would hold nominating conventions on or between the last Saturday of June and the first Saturday of July (the same period in which minor parties and independent candidates hold their nominating conventions) to select their candidates. The idea is A) eliminate all public funding for what the parties have gotten the courts to declare private assemblies and B) level the playing field with regards to campaign financing between major parties (who are allowed to collect contributions for the primary election even when there is no competition) and minor parties (who are barred from the primaries, thus not allowed to collect contributions.) Non-partisan elections, such as for judges, would be held on Election Day with a run-off election between the two leading candidates in the rare situation of no candidate receiving a majority. (Currently in non-partisan elections, a majority in the primary automatically wins the seat for the candidate, and the race is dropped from the general election ballot.)

Please indicate your view on this proposal. Please elaborate on your choice! I won't be participating in this initiative (I have a different one I'm focusing on; see my sig.) but until I can get my friends to sign up with DU, I will be passing any suggestions or criticisms to them.

[Johnyawl]

1. Get rid of the primaries

a political party has the right to pick it's nominees, and to limit who participates in that process, I just don't see why the state is paying for that process.

[geniph]

2. I agree

the party nominates its candidates for many offices at nominating conventions now, and then pointlessly holds a primary. Last year, I ran for office. I was the only Democratic nominee for the office - I was nominated at the county nominating convention - and my opponent was the only Republican nominee. There was no point to either of our names even appearing on the primary ballot, but we did. What good did it do to have a primary in that case, where neither of us were even opposed?

[eridani]

3. IRV is ideal for the judges' races n/t