Nov. 8 Daily News editorial

Washington lawmakers should have listened to Secretary of State Sam Reed several years ago, when he recommended moving the state’s then-mid-September primary election date all the way back to June. Instead, legislators pushed it back only a month — to the third Tuesday in August.

As a consequence, Washington is one of about dozen states that has a problem with a new federal law requiring ballots to be sent members of the military, their dependents and other Americans living abroad at least 45 days before an election. Because of the weeks it takes to certify winners and losers, next year’s Aug. 17 primary won’t allow enough turnaround time to get those general election ballots in the mail soon enough to meet the 45-day requirement.

State officials wasted no time asking the federal government for an exemption from that requirement. According to Associated Press writer Brian Bakst, Washington and three other states began preparing to request waivers just days after President Barack Obama sign the defense bill containing this ballot provision into law.

State officials might be able to make a convincing case for the waiver. While it’s true that next year’s overseas absentee ballots wouldn’t likely be posted 45 days before the election, Washington doesn’t require that all ballots be in elections officials’ hands at the end of Election Day to be counted. Ballots arriving as long as three weeks after the election can be counted, so long as they’re postmarked by Election Day.

Federal officials just might be persuaded that Washington’s grace period for late-arriving ballots offers adequate protection for the votes of military personnel and others living overseas. But we think Washington would do better to drop plans to pursue this exemption and do what should have been done years ago — move the primary date back to June. Oregon has a June primary, and it works just fine. Oregon never has trouble getting its ballots out in plenty of time and getting a voters’ pamphlet in citizens’ hands while they still have plenty of time to study it.

Washington lawmakers initially resisted the notion of a June primary or even an August primary because of the state’s prohibition on campaign fund-raising before, during and following legislative sessions. Legislators had to cease fund-raising activities 30 days before they convened in Olympia and they couldn’t resume fund-raising until 30 days after they adjourn. The prohibition on fund-raising following sessions was lifted in exchange for moving the primary date back to August.

A June primary might well put incumbents facing re-election at some disadvantage. But probably not so much as to completely cancel out the advantages incumbents have over challengers. State officials shouldn’t risk disenfranchising even one member of the military by pursuing a waiver to this 45-day rule. The 2010 Legislature needs to move the primary date back to June, as it should have done years ago.