BY SARAH ROSS
PORTLAND- More than 2,000 Oregonians registered with Oregon’s Independent Party participated in the party’s primary race which finalized its results on Friday evening.
The primary, which was the first binding statewide online primary election in the country, picked a unique mesh of candidates including John Kitzhaber, Democratic candidate running for Governor, as well as Republican candidates Scott Bruun, candidate for the 5th Congressional district and Art Robinson of the 4th Congressional district.
“If you look at the candidates who put the most effort into winning the party’s nomination, pretty consistently those were the candidates who won,” said Sal Peralta, Secretary for the Independent Party of Oregon. “The folks who actually listened to what our members were telling us they were interested in tended to do well, also.”
The 2,300 primary participants made up about 4 percent of the Independent Party’s 57,000 members. The group was able to push through state legislation in 2009 which allowed them to include candidates running under another party’s name on their primary ballots. The legislation allows a candidate to have up to three nominating parties on the general election ballot, as well.
Peralta added that one of his party’s main goals with their 2009 legislation was to encourage candidates to reach out to its members, and he was happy to see this happen.
“This is clearly the most open and inclusive primary election in state history,” said Peralta. “It’s the first time ever that candidates from every political party or none at all had the opportunity to participate in a partisan primary nominating process.”
On a state government level, winners of the Independent nomination include Democrat Representatives Arnie Roblan of Coos Bay, Nancy Nathanson of Eugene, Carolyn Tomei of Portland and Speaker Dave Hunt of Clackamas. The truly independent nature of members showed through in the additional nominations of Republican representatives Matt Wingard of Wilsonville, John Huffman of The Dalles, and Vicki Berger of Salem.
The State Senate had similar results with Betsy Johnson, D-Scappose, Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin, Chris Edwards, D-North Eugene, Larry George, R-Newberg, Jackie Winters, R-Salem, and Frank Morse, R-Albany.
Peralta concluded by saying he is hopeful that this process will lead to greater collaboration between Democrats and Republicans when the Legislature returns in 2011.
