Spin Control: What’s in a name? A statute if one candidate’s is too close to another’s

Washington’s gubernatorial primary started with a bang last month and shows little sign of quieting down.

That’s not surprising, considering the job comes with a six-figure salary, a rent-free mansion, a chauffeur and aircraft at the ready to take the winner some places.

The 30 candidates who filed include a heavy mix of starry-eyed hopefuls and perennial wannabes, and the field is usually bigger when there’s no incumbent.

The original lineup that had Bob Ferguson in triplicate didn’t really get out of the gate, as the two Bobs who are neither your uncle nor the attorney general quickly dropped out under threat of legal action.

Mark Mullet, a Democrat who might be the toughest challenge to the remaining Bob, then filed complaints about alleged interference by the attorney general in the process that bounced the other two from the ballot.

Whether those complaints – one with the state Executive Ethics Board and the other with the Bar Association – will resolve the issue before the Aug. 6 primary is questionable, as both are known to work with the kind of deliberate speed that requires significant deliberation.

But “the three Bobs controversy” may have prompted some readers to wonder how frequently the state has to deal with candidates having the same or similar names, and whether it’s so common the state has a process to deal with it.

It is relatively uncommon, at least at the state level. Three identically named candidates haven’t filed for the same office in Washington since statehood, a quick check of the Secretary of State’s election records confirms. In 1916, the ballot for state attorney general had two Henry Alberts McCleans – one as a Democrat and one as a Progressive – although those were apparently the same person who won the nomination of the two separate parties.

Washington was heavily Republican in those days, although it had been split in 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt ran on the Progressive or Bull Moose Party. Although Republican William V. Tanner, the incumbent, got 98% of the primary vote, McClean got enough votes as a Democrat to make it into the general … where he was soundly trounced by Tanner.

In 1940, two-term Lands Commissioner Albert C. Martin found himself on the primary ballot with another Democrat, O.C. Martin. The incumbent, suspicious of some chicanery by a Democrat rival calling himself Progressive Jack Taylor, cried foul. He asked the state Supreme Court to strike O.C. Martin from the ballot, contending that Martin actually went by the name Ora and not his initials, and that his two opponents had cooked up a “wicked conspiracy” to defeat him.

After just a few days, the high court denied Albert C.’s request for an order striking O.C. from the ballot.

It was a 13-person field, but in those days, although a voter could select any candidate in any race, the Washington primary sent the top Democrat and top Republican to the general election. The Democratic race had six candidates, and Taylor beat Albert C. in the Democratic primary by 19,509 votes; O.C. got 24,887, the majority of which Albert C. likely thought were his.

Three years later, as the Legislature was overhauling the state’s election law chapter, one of the new statutes added involved identical or similar names for the same office. That law, which remains on the books, makes it a felony to file with a false name, a name similar to an incumbent seeking re-election, or with a surname similar to a well-known candidate who has already filed, in an effort to confuse or mislead voters.

That apparently stopped candidate name games until 1996 when an open seat for lieutenant governor drew a crowd of 14 candidates, several of them well-known legislators. State Sen. Brad Owen, a conservative Democrat, found himself in a Democratic lineup that included Bob Owen, a state employee who had a decidedly different view on drug laws than the long-term legislator.

Brad Owen was part of a rock band that played songs with anti-drug messages in schools. Bob Owen was secretary for the Washington Hemp Education Network.

Brad Owen appealed to the Secretary of State’s office, which turned to another statute in state election law, the Associated Press reported. In a situation where two candidates have similar names, it allows elections officials to add descriptions to the ballot to help voters differentiate between them. The state elections office decided the ballot should say “Brad Owen, state senator” and “Bob Owen, computer consultant.”

Not satisfied, Brad Owen went to court to ask the ballots to either say “Brad Owen, youth activist” and “Bob Owen, computer consultant” or “Brad Owen, state senator” and “Bob Owen, treasurer Washington Hemp Education Network”.

The court said no, and the descriptions from the secretary of state stuck. In the six-person Democratic field, Brad Owen edged out state Sen. Paull Shin for first place by about 7,300 votes; Bob Owen finished third with 44,500 votes.

So for readers who were wondering, the state ballot has had a few instances of candidates with similar names running for the same position and with mixed results.

Even though it’s rare, the state also has statutes and procedures to deal with it – probably because the people who make those laws have to run for re-election every two or four years and want it to be as easy as possible.