My choices are:
- Sam Reed (Prefers Republican Party)
- Jason Osgood (Prefers Democratic Party)
Jason Osgood’s positions on elections are all pretty solid. Policy-wise we wouldn’t have the issues with using bad election technology that other states have run in to, and which Washington has seen a few instances of. But he’s a one trick pony. The office of Secretary of State’s biggest area is state elections, but it has lots of other responsibilities. The Secretary of State (which is very unlike the federal Secretary of State) needs to be a solid manager to handle all the departments run out of the office. I know nothing about Osgood’s managerial experience, and his web site does not list any. It takes more than being right on an issue.
Sam Reed has been a capable Secretary of State. The state liberal web is pretty anti-Sam Reed because he (along with Rob McKenna) implemented the Top 2 primary. I, however, love the Top 2 primary, which was after all voted in place by initiative. His failing was apparently not fighting it enough. I say booyah! He hasn’t been as rigid as I would like to get verified paper trails in place for election technology, but pushing to have counties move to vote by mail moves more people to a paper trail than anything else will.
My vote is for Sam Reed.
See, I’m not a complete knee-jerk liberal Democrat.