Primary voters must publicly declare their party affiliation

In the state’s upcoming presidential primary on Tuesday, March 10, people will be required to identify as either a Republican or a Democrat in order for their vote to be counted. Unlike in some past years, there will be no option for primary voters to identify as unaffiliated or independent.

While your choice of party will not affect how you may vote in future elections, the party declaration will be located on the outside of your ballot envelope, and it will be a matter of public record.

“That information will be public for 60 days,” secretary of state Kim Wyman said in a recent interview with KOMO News. “So if you choose a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot, that will be a list that will be available to the public, and people will be able to tell what your party affiliation was at least on that date. Who you voted for will still be kept secret, but which side of the aisle you chose will be a public record.”

This is pursuant to a new state law that changed the primary date-setting process, how candidates gain access to the ballot and how parties use the results. Most significantly, the new law moved Washington’s presidential primary up to March 10; previously it was held later in the cycle.

In her interview, Wyman explained exactly how voting will work in the March 10 primary. “As a voter, you’re going to receive an outer mailing envelope that will have two oaths on it, the Democratic Party oath and the Republican Party oath,” she said. “You as a voter have to select one of those two and sign it, attesting that you are a member of that party. When you get to your ballot materials, it will be a single ballot. One column will be the Democratic column and it will have all the Democratic nominees in alphabetical order, and then the other column will be the Republican column and that will have ‘Donald Trump’ and ‘write-in.’”

Wyman said that voters must stay on the same side of the ballot as the political party they choose; if you cross over, that will negate the ballot. “If you say that ‘I’m a Republican’ and you think you’re going to be sneaky and cross over and vote for a Democrat, in the sorting process at the county level, before they ever open your envelope, they physically sort out the ballots by the Republican stack and the Democratic stack,” she said. “And so when they separate your name from the ballot and they actually open it and you’ve crossed over, they will not count that ballot because you didn’t vote on the Republican side.”

In further remarks to The Northern Light, Wyman said that the requirement for primary voters to declare their party affiliation is not new and has been a longstanding principle. It helps give political parties a higher confidence level in choosing their standard-bearer, she said. She said that in some past primaries, an unaffiliated option appeared. It proved to be a popular choice for voters, even if the political parties didn’t take those votes into consideration. In 2000, 1.3 million people cast primary ballots, and over 500,000 of them chose an unaffiliated option, she said.