State ex rel. Rogers v. Howell

Citations

• 92 Wash. 381
• 159 P. 118

Syllabus

<p>Elections — Primary Elections — Political Parties — Right to Separate Ballots — Ten Per Cent of Votes Cast — Subdivisions of State — Statutes. In order to qualify under tbe primary law as a ten-per-cent political party, as applied to state-wide officers, tbe party must have polled ten per cent of tbe total vote cast at tbe last preceding election for some state-wide office; and as to candidates for any office confined to any given subdivision of the state, then, ten per cent of the total vote cast in such subdivision for some subdivisional office in that particular district; under Rem. & Bal. Code, § 4809, providing that any political party is entitled to a separate primary election ticket as a political party if any of its candidates received ten per cent of the total vote cast at such last preceding general or city election in this state, or subdivision thereof, “in which the candidate seeks the nomination.”</p> <p>Same. Under such statute, the fact that a candidate for United States senator is not a candidate for a state office in the functional sense, does not affect the status of the party as a ten-per-cent party as regards such candidate; since his candidacy is state-wide, and the criterion of the statute is “candidates or individual nominees . . . in the state.”</p> <p>Same. In determining the status of a party as to state-wide candidates, the highest aggregate vote for any county or subdivisions! candidates, cast in part of the counties or subdivisions of the state cannot be considered; since the number of votes cast for a statewide candidate is determinative as to a party’s state-wide standing.</p> <p>Same — Political Parties — Equal Rights — Political Questions. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 4826, providing for the election of committees of political parties entitled to participate in a primary election, which includes only ten-per-cent parties, is not unconstitutional as denying a less than ten-per-cent party participation in a primary election, since such party