Democratic leaders in Washington say they have have renewed hope in challenging the state’s top-two primary system, which sends the two leading candidates from the primary onto the general elections—even two members of the same party. The problem, they say, is that the system doesn’t allow parties to pick their leading nominee and excludes minority parties from making it to the general election in districts that heavily lean right or left.

“We think Republicans should have a crack at the ballot in Seattle and Democrats should have a crack at the ballot in Yakima,” says Dwight Pelz, Chair of the Washington State Democratic Party. “Voters should be given a choice.”

Yesterday, US District Court Judge John Coughenour agreed that the current system could be flawed when he denied a motion by the state and the Grange to dismiss a lawsuit by the State Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian Parties against the top two primary system. In doing so, the decision means that, although the supreme court ruled that the top-two system could stand in 2008, it didn’t rule out future challenges. The current lawsuit, which won't affect the current election, in essence argues that the top-two system confuses voters and harms a party’s freedom to officially nominate its candidate.

But the secretary of state’s office says that the top-two system, created by Initiative 872 in 2004, can’t be abandoned completely. In a statement, the office’s spokesman David Ammons says this ruling would simply allow another round of litigation that could force the state “to change how they list candidates on the ballots or in the voters' pamphlet.”

Pelz thinks the more party information available, the better. He says, "We think parties show voters valuable information about what a candidate stands for."