{"id":312154,"date":"2026-05-12T16:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312154\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T16:37:08","slug":"seattle-has-found-the-way-to-mend-californias-top-two-primary-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312154\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle has found the way to mend California\u2019s top-two primary system"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the editor: A well-known glitch in California\u2019s top-two primaries is no reason to revert to the bad old days of partisan primaries that favor extremism and stoke polarization (\u201c\u2018Extremely scary\u2019: Specter of an all-GOP governor\u2019s race spurs push to remake open primary,\u201d<\/a> May 10). The glitch is real, though. It deserves mending. Fortunately, there\u2019s an elegant fix, and my home city of Seattle has already enacted it.<\/p>\n

The problem, which loomed large in the governor race until recently, is that many candidates in the majority Democratic Party can split the primary vote, sending two Republicans to the general.<\/p>\n

Washington state is California\u2019s only true companion<\/a> in using the top-two system. In fact, we invented it here, and we\u2019ve had time to tune it. Starting next year<\/a>, Seattle\u2019s primary ballots will let voters rank their choices. When tallying, officials will start eliminating lower vote-getters at the bottom of the pack, transferring ballots to voters\u2019 next-favorite candidate, repeating the process until only two remain. That way, progressive and conservative voters can both consolidate around their consensus standard-bearers.<\/p>\n

California could do the same. This isn\u2019t full-fledged ranked-choice voting, like San Francisco uses and Los Angeles is considering. It\u2019s a minimalist form only for the primary.<\/p>\n

In Seattle, we call it \u201cranked top two,\u201d and because it\u2019s only needed in races with giant fields, it\u2019s surprisingly easy to implement. California\u2019s Legislature could adopt it this year, and election officials could launch it in 2028 \u2014 a better plan than devolving to the partisan spite matches that prevail in the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

Alan Durning, Seattle <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: A well-known glitch in California\u2019s top-two primaries is no reason to revert to the bad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[130811,7,9,8,2072,63,5682,3335,76891,130809,2211,7853,124657,1522,6305,8843,130810],"class_list":["post-312154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-all-gop-governor","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-editor","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-next-year","tag-official","tag-open-primary","tag-primary-ballot","tag-race","tag-seattle","tag-top-two-primary-system","tag-voter","tag-washington-state","tag-way","tag-well-known-glitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}