Not Voting

For a while, I supported Washington State's new "top-two" primary system where the top two vote-getting candidates move on to the general election (regardless of political affiliation). It initially seemed to me like a fair way of getting the two "best" candidates to the general. In my mind, I thought: "cool, if the *best* two candidates are democrats (or republicans) - that seems more fair than selecting one candidate from every party".

Now, I'm seeing the drawback to this system as I look to see who the third party candidates for the WA State senate race are. There aren't any. They were eliminated by the top-two primary. The top-two primary eliminates third party candidates... as the voting cattle vote R or D nearly all of the time.

So we have one lousy democrat and one lousy republican to choose from. I am not voting for either. I will instead write in "Bryan Comstock", or "Mickey Mouse", or "Eric Cartman". I hope there is an opportunity to write in a candidate's name... otherwise I'm not voting.

Going forward, I think third party candidates need to make a much stronger case for themselves in the primaries and start messing with the "top two" rule...