Secretary of State Sam Reed did an informal sampling around the state to see how well voters were doing filling out their pick-a-party primary ballots. The numbers have been changing, so these are not necessarily current. Snohomish, for example, showed 21 percent rejection rate last week, but over the weekend had improved to around 12 percent, according to Reed's office. Some other numbers:

Benton: 5%
King: 5%
Clark: 7%
San Juan: 7%
Garfield: 7%
Klickitat: 8%
Yakima: 9%
Pierce: 10%
Clallam and Stevens: 11%
Chelan: 12%
Kitsap: 14%

Peter Callaghan in The News Tribune said no one should be surprised that voters refusing, or failing, to show their party preference.

Here's what should surprise elections officials: A lot of voters are actually choosing a party, even though the parties have left voters with no real choices. While nonpartisan judge races have created all sorts of competition, the partisan races for Congress, state Legislature and county offices are mostly choices of one.

In the Peninsula Gateway John Earl wrote about the primary, too.

The two major parties have worked very hard to enforce party discipline. The result is that our September primaries resemble a coronation more than an election. In the process, voters are given less and less choice, and have subsequently grown more and more dissatisfied with the government that we eventually receive. If you get the feeling your voice is being minimized or marginalized, that's because it is.

The article isn't online but you can read it here, along with other primary news. He's been tracking all the bad news about the primary. There's more here, too.

In The Spokesman-Review, Rich Roesler says the grange is committed to getting rid of the current primary.

All you have to do is pretty much take the party affiliation off the ballots," says Dan Hammock. "Right now, the parties have basically a stranglehold on the entire system."

Hammock is a spokesman for the Washington State Grange, which in 1934 joined the AFL-CIO and other groups to successfully prod state lawmakers into approving the state's highly unusual "blanket primary." Under it, voters could hopscotch back and forth between parties on the same primary ballot.

Makes one nostalgic.

At The Stranger, Josh Feit lectures readers on the primary.

The Secretary of State's office has primary information here and more specifics on the ballots here.