Party lawyers claim 'Top Two' will create more problems

Attorneys for the state Republican and Democratic Parties are expectedly unhappy with the Secretary of State's guidelines for this summer's "Top Two" primary ballots. The Everett Herald's Jerry Cornfield has obtained letters from party lawyers to the Secretary of State spelling out some of their gripes. They both say the rules are hasty and as such carry with them a risk of election problems.

Here they are as excerpted by Jerry:

Republican Party attorney John White writes:

"The draft regulations have been prepared in haste, and it shows, both in substance and in technical drafting. The state has available an alternative approach that has worked before, In 2000, the state was also presented with a Supreme Court decision affecting an election schedule to occur within months of the decision. At that time, rather than create a substantial risk of disruption by rushing to implement a new system, the state and political parties agreed to an orderly schedule for resolving the legal issues presented - while following an established and tested set of election rules. We are again faced with such a situation and the better course of action for the people of the state is to continue the system in place, and for which your office already adopted emergency regulations last month, rather than attempting to craft a new system on the fly."

Democratic Party attorney David McDonald writes:

"My principal comment with regard to these draft regulations is that the proposed implementation of I-872 does not solve - and in some cases does not even address - serious problems. Indeed, the apparent decision that your office will attempt to unilaterally replace a well-thought out, tested and familiar primary system with a patchwork, hastily pulled together proposal to partially implement I-872 may create even more problems."