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Party labels useless for our primary By Martha M. Ireland As quick as primary election ballots reached local voters, people called wanting advice. Thank heavens a voters’ guide arrived with last Sunday's Peninsula Daily News. Even so, choosing isn’t easy. Consider the races for Port Angeles City Council Position 2 and Jefferson County Fire District No. 5 Position 1. Do Larry Williams in P.A. and Randy Okerman in Gardiner deserve to win because they have more formal education than their opponents? Or should voters opt for John Logelin and Richard Vaughan because they’ve lived in their respective areas since early childhood? Or will Karen Spence (Port Angeles City Council) and Barb Knoepfe (Fire District 5) get the nod because they’re women? Surely there are more substantive reasons for marking your ballot. Some voters wish for party tags to help them choose, while others claim partisan designations blur issues. This time, party loyalty is a wild card. All positions on the ballots in Clallam and Jefferson counties this year are nonpartisan. That doesn’t mean the candidates are pure nonpartisans. In 1987, nonpartisan Sequim fire district commissioner Dave Cameron became a Democrat to successfully run for county commissioner. In 1994, nonpartisan Quillayute Valley school board director Phil Kitchel won election to the county commission as a Republican. And Mike Doherty was on the Port Angeles school board claiming nonpartisanship during the 20-odd years separating his two terms as a Democrat county commissioner. Andrew Nisbet was a Republican when he represented this area in the state legislature some years back, but nonpartisan as a Port of Port Angeles commissioner. Dorothy Duncan was a nonpartisan Port Angeles city councilwoman, a Democrat county commissioner, and has returned to nonpartisan status as a school board member. When the Clallam County Charter Review Commission convenes next spring, partisanship will likely be a discussion topic. In Jefferson and the other 33 non-charter counties in the state, county auditors, assessors, treasurers, and sheriffs run under a party label. In Clallam, those four positions are non-partisan. Some believe those positions should be returned to partisan status. Others would like to add the county commissioners to the list of nonpartisans. (State law is perceived as requiring that the county prosecutor remain partisan.) Despite Clallam Treasurer Ruth Gerdon’s current nonpartisan status, Clallam Democrats claim Gerdon as their own because her office was a partisan post when she began serving there. Last time Gerdon ran for reelection, she had an opponent, partly because some Republicans felt "that Democrat" shouldn’t get a free pass. Clallam Auditor Cathleen McKeown will be on this November’s ballot unopposed for election to the post to which she was appointed last year. If McKeown had been required to state a party affiliation, the other major party may well have offered an alternative. One candidate for a nonpartisan post this year sought endorsements from three different parties. He told me the Libertarians are backing him and the Greens are considering doing so. The Republicans, however, turned him down, citing their firm policy against endorsing anyone in nonpartisan races. Still, people call party leaders asking, "Who’s ‘our’ candidate?" Peninsula-wide, the September 18 primary will narrow a total of six races—with three candidates each—to two candidates each. For whom should you vote? As the voters’ guide says, it’s your decision. Ballots must be postmarked no later than Sept. 18, or dropped into a county lockbox by no later than 8 p.m. Sept. 18.
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