THE deadline has passed, all the candidates’ names were thrown into a hat to determine their placement on the ballot, and everything is set for the Sept. 1 primary for those seeking a seat in the 32nd Guam Legislature.

Now let’s see, in the Democratic primary there are only 15 verified candidates. So why are we having a primary for that party at all, with just 15 seats to fill? They’re all automatically on the general election ballot. The primary will just give them a relative ranking, something most of you can probably do just by looking at the list, published elsewhere in this edition of the Variety.

Over on the Republican side, after everything shook out there were 16 candidates still standing, so one will be dropped out by the voters. Tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be spent to determine who that one poor sucker is going to be, who will not survive to compete in November. How embarrassing!

It all raises the question of why the government of Guam is bothering with the party primaries at all. The Election Commission will say, of course, that there must be a primary because the law requires it. It is this exact situation that exemplifies the folly of taxpayer-funded party primaries. This is one obvious election reform the Legislature could have passed this year, but didn’t even consider as far as we know.

There was a time when party leaders here on Guam got together in advance of the general election and, after polling their members and looking around for interested candidates, simply submitted their list of names to the election commission, kind of like a coach submitting his team roster to the umpire prior to a game. It was very simple, and probably as it ought to be.

Asking the public to finance party elections is an unwarranted imposition on the taxpayers, and an expensive waste of time and money when we have this sort of situation. Since there are only 15 Democratic candidates, why bother? As for the GOP, draw straws, or ask for a volunteer, or something. Have a meeting of all the hopefuls and perhaps the one hapless soon-to-be also-ran we mentioned above will simply step forward, acknowledge that he or she hasn’t got a chance, and resign. Give back the filing fee. Give them a gift certificate for dinner out with the family. That will be a lot less expensive than printing and counting all those ballots.