The arguments made by proponents of the “top two” jungle primary used in California are simple: they claim to believe that it encourages voter participation and makes it harder for extreme ideological candidates to be elected. This appeals to voters who think of themselves as moderates and view both parties as the problem. John Opdycke, the president of the national advocacy group Open Primaries, claims , “One of the most positive features of the California system is that both political parties hate it.” In an era where anti-establishment fervor helped Donald Trump win the White House, this sentiment cannot be ignored. From the numbers I have looked at, it seems like California voters don’t long to go back to the days of partisan primaries, so I suspect that any improvement in the near future will have to be a modification of the current system.
In some diaries and comments, posters have argued for ranked-choice primaries. How would that have worked in a large field such as the ridiculous 100+ candidates who ran in the California governor recall election? Instead, I propose keeping the jungle primary where all candidates run each other, but expanding the field of candidates advancing to the general election from two to four.
Under this scenario, it would be hard to prevent Democrats and Republicans from getting at least one candidate to advance to the general election, while giving independents and third-party backers the hope that they might cast a meaningful vote for someone outside the two major parties, so no one should feel the need to drop out to ensure that a Democrat is on the final ballot. Instead, the primary functions as a way of generating a shortlist of viable candidates for further consideration. I have chosen the number four because I think that is a reasonable number that can be accommodated in a multi-candidate debate. You want to give voters more than two options, but you don’t want to give them so many options that it becomes too much of an effort to process all the information about the candidates.
Having narrowed the field down to a final four, the general election should be conducted by ranked-choice voting, with instant run-off voting being a very reasonable way to do that. IRV with 10+ candidates becomes a chore and voters will often rank only some of the candidates. With a field of four, voters become more likely to rank all candidates.
The major parties get a system where they are highly unlikely to be shut out of the general election. Third parties get to feel like they have a chance to be relevant on Election Day. Independents have a chance to make a relevant choice for a candidate who wasn’t the top choice of either major party establishment.