"How do primaries for Washington state's elected officials work? In the March presidential primaries, we Washingtonians have to declare a party in order to vote for a candidate from that party. That rule comes from the parties themselves. The party declaration gets wiped off our voter information 60 days later and it never affects our future votes. But the parties do have access to our registration info, name, address, etc. during those 60 days. Still, if we don't pick a party, our vote won't count in a presidential primary. Choosing candidates for elected office in the state of Washington during the August primary is entirely different. We never need to declare a party vote for those candidates, from governor and senators at the state level to local mayors and council members. All the candidates for the same office are on the same list on our ballot – Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Independents, whatever – and every voter gets to choose one of them. The two candidates who get the most votes go on to the general elections in November. But in this top two system, the two winners don't have to be members of different parties. Sometimes they're both Republicans or both Democrats. That potentially leaves supporters of the other party with no one they want to vote for. There's a way to deal with that problem with ranked choice voting. Hashtag civxed with LWVBWC."