Why California's Top Two Primary System Fails Democracy

The Problem with Top Two

California's Top Two primary system allows all voters to choose any candidate regardless of party registration, with only the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election. While this sounds democratic, it creates significant problems.

The Same-Party Trap

The most glaring flaw: both finalists can belong to the same party. In deep-blue California, Democratic strategists likely expected two Democrats to dominate general elections. However, this year's gubernatorial primary revealed a critical vulnerability. When the Democratic field is crowded, vote-splitting can allow two Republicans to advance instead. This forces party leaders to pressure weaker candidates to drop out, essentially moving the spoiler problem from the general election into the primary.

Empowering the Base, Not the Majority

Most voters skip primaries but turn out for general elections. Under Top Two, the candidates who advance are those who energize partisan primary voters, typically the most ideologically extreme. While candidates may moderate during the general campaign, they must still maintain base support for future primaries. Meanwhile, voters who only participate in general elections face the same two-party duopoly, just restructured. Independent candidates rarely crack the top two.

Three Goals for Meaningful Reform

Effective election reform should achieve:

1. Empower the broader electorate by reducing the disproportionate influence of partisan primary voters
2. Enable independent and third-party candidates by eliminating the spoiler effect
3. Ensure majority support for winners while avoiding costly runoff elections

Top Two fails the first two objectives. It succeeds only at avoiding runoffs and guaranteeing a majority winner, a low bar.

Why Ranked Choice for Top Two Isn't Enough

FairVote has proposed using ranked choice voting (RCV) to select the top two primary finalists. This is a marginal improvement at best. It barely addresses objectives one and two while still failing objective three. With only two candidates advancing from a partisan-heavy primary, the pressure to pander to the base remains intense. Partisan primary voters are unlikely to rank independent candidates high enough to matter.

The fundamental flaw isn't the voting method, it's the restriction to two finalists. Improving the primary mechanism while maintaining this bottleneck misses the point.

The Alaska Model: A Better Solution

Alaska's system demonstrates how to meet all three objectives: open primaries with the top four or five candidates advancing to a general election decided by RCV.

How It Works Better:

• Broader candidate pool: While partisan candidates will typically be among the finalists, independent and third-party candidates have a realistic path forward
• Incentive to moderate: Candidates must appeal to a wider electorate to surpass 50%, not just energize a partisan base
• Reduced primary threat: The larger finalist pool decreases the fear of being "primaried" that plagues closed primary systems
• Real voter choice: General election voters get meaningful options instead of a predetermined duopoly

The primary can use either plurality voting or RCV, both work. The key is using RCV in the general election to ensure the winner has majority support without the expense of a runoff.

What You Can Do

Get involved with the election reform movement through organizations like FairVote and Rank the Vote. Most have local chapters.

Don't settle for half measures. Incremental reforms that fail to deliver real improvement give a false sense of progress while undermining the movement's credibility. Associating RCV with flawed implementations like Top Two RCV risks tarnishing the concept itself.

Speak up. Let chapter leaders know that voters need solutions that genuinely expand choice and reduce partisan polarization—not just cosmetic changes to a broken system.