As most people who read my stuff have probably already voted, I should have posted this earlier if I wanted to actually persuade anyone. Still, I feel it’s good practice for me to justify my own votes.

Yes on Prop 14

Prop 14 creates a non-partisan primary system. Rather than party-specific primaries, there’s just one big election where everyone from any party runs. The top two vote-getters (assuming neither candidate gets more than 50%) then move on to a run-off vote.

Personally, I think instant-runoff voting is the way to go, but a jungle primary would be an improvement too. That said, you’re not automatically getting less polarizing candidates as advertised. In most jungle primaries, the two who make it to the runoff round are probably going to be the same two who would have won the Democratic and Republican primaries anyway. The benefit is really in those edge cases where there’s a candidate with significant cross-over appeal. For example, let’s say I’m really invested in the outcome of a close Democratic primary for Governor but I also really like one of the more moderate Republican candidate for Treasurer. Under the old system, they’re on different ballots, so I’d have to choose which one I care about more. Under the new one, it’s all unified onto a single ballot, so I can make those moderating votes for both candidates. Continue reading →