1. The article, “With California election system, no Governors Bellmon, Bartlett, Keating, or Stitt”, reflects a somewhat disingenuous argument against the proposed top-two system by a Republican politician. They say that four of the state’s five Republican governors wouldn’t have made the general election ballot under “top two”, because they received fewer votes in the primary than two Democratic candidates. However, Oklahoma has a closed primary system, so the numbers of votes candidates received in those closed primaries isn’t necessarily the same as the numbers of votes they would have received in a jungle primary with the same candidates. In particular, only current Governor Stitt’s example happened due to the vote splitting phenomenon that we have seen on occasion in California (where so many more candidates of the majority party run that two candidates from the minority party come in first and second). It appears that the earlier examples happened before the party system transition from the Jim Crow era had completed, with many more Democratic Party registrants (and thus participants in Democratic primaries) than Republican Party registrants (and thus participants in Republican primaries), even though the voters were leaning more Republican in general elections.

2. I agree with you, Dave.

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