Seth Masket is a political scientist who has studied polarization and partisanship in state government for many years. Here is a new column by Masket about how Califoria’s top-two primary worked in practice last year. As he notes, it has increased the power of the major party organizations to determine who is permitted to run in November.
It is bizarre that they included the “effect” on races where there was only a single Democratic candidate who received 100% of the vote cast for Democratic candidate.
There doesn’t appear to be any adjustments for the number of Democratic candidates, or whether one was an incumbent.
The top-two system as law has been useful in making clear that the boast so many voters make in an effort to project themselves as independent-minded, that they vote the individual and not the party is untrue.
Most voters want to know, because it says so much by itself, is what candidates are bonafide delegates of a viable political organization. No other information is as good for the voter that invest only a modest amount of time considering candidacies.
If there were more than two viable parties, they’d get more
The trade-off with top-two has been banishment for
alternative parties from the general election ballot and increased power for major party officials.
When top-two is referred to as an “open primary”, it’s offensive.
As you may know, Washington elects two representatives by position from each legislative district. That is, the voters for each position are identical. The number of districts with representatives of different parties has increased under the Top 2 Open Primary, in Washington.
1/2 votes x 1/2 PACK/CRACK gerrymander districts =
about 25 percent ANTI-Democracy indirect minority rule
— since the 1964 SCOTUS gerrymander cases.
It shows – the ongoing collapse of civilization in the old major cities, insane national debt, insane annual deficits, un-declared wars, etc.
I.E. EVIL Oligarchs at work.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.