Even Harriet Spanel, our supposed liberal champion of fairness, was one of the leaders in the legislative process to weaken our votes. Last March she kept quiet and went along with the Democratic party boss Paul Berendt and followed his orders to push through this screwed-up primary election process. All, supposedly, because it was the only legal solution.

There was another legal solution. Candidates could have used 5 words to describe their politics on our ballots. Authorized party candidates could have used one word - Democrat or Republican. Others could have used 5 words, such as 'Progressive and environmentalist' or 'Fiscal conservative and social progressive'. This legal solution was even in the primary legislation at one point in the process - but then the party bosses ordered the legislators to delete it. And they did. And passed the double primary bill the party bosses gave them. And Locke vetoed the part he was told to veto and we have the other part. Last March this website informed you of this dirty process day by day as it happened.

If that is too complicated for you then you should know it is supposed to be too complicated for you. And thus you will stay ignorant of how you were deprived of your voting rights. By our Republican and Democratic state legislators. And Gov Locke.

What to do? Each of us should carefully vote in the primary. I wanted to vote for Dino Rossi, a Republican, for governor but also Paul EveryHope, a Democrat, for the legislature. I can't vote for both, so I made a choice as to which party ticket to use. Then on Nov 2, in the general election, vote "Yes" to Initiative 872, and we will have our top-two primary process. You can bet the party bosses will raise hell and we will spend a couple years voting on voting processes. But we must take our voting rights back from the party bosses. And their obedient legislators.