Letter to the Editor: Question 3 Will Decrease Electoral Competition and Split Votes

OUR EDITORIAL POLICY

Question 3 promises more competition and accountability. But the more you look, the more empty that promise gets.

It lumps every candidate, Democrat, Republican, or Independent, onto a single September ballot. The voter marks one name. The top two advance to November. That's it.

Who makes that September decision? A sliver of voters: Massachusetts primary turnout was 21.75% in 2022, just 16.7% in 2024, and roughly 23% this year, per unofficial results. A small, motivated group becomes the kingmaker; everyone else gets left behind.

Worse, top-two primaries punish whichever party fields more candidates. In California's 31st District in 2014, four Democrats together took 53.2% of the vote, yet a Republican finished first. In Washington's 3rd District in 2022, Republican candidates together took nearly 65% of the vote, the incumbent was knocked out, and a Democrat won the seat. In Question 3's proposed system, parties get rewarded when there are fewer choices on who to vote for. This isn't a substitute for actual competition because it hides the problem of one-party dominance.  Reform should have been aimed to attract real competition and challengers from opposing parties, instead of borrowing party labels and pretending to be different.

Top-two primaries also manufacture single party general elections. A legislative committee’s report on this petition warned that it “can lead to general elections where two candidates from just one major party are the only candidates.” It has happened time and again: California's 31st District in 2012, its 25th in 2014, and its 8th in 2018, plus Washington's 4th in 2024, each sent two candidates from a single party to November and shut the other side out of the general election entirely.  In 2016 and again in 2018, California had no Republican candidate for U.S. Senate on its November ballot.

Minor parties and Independents get squeezed out.  Federal courts have clearly found that top-two inherently burdens them: the Ninth Circuit held it “makes it more difficult for minor-party candidates to qualify for the general election ballot” and called that “an inherent feature of any top two primary system,” reasoning that Massachusetts' own Supreme Judicial Court found “persuasive” when it upheld this measure.

Voters keep rejecting this idea. Oregon said no in 2008 and again in 2014; Colorado, Arizona, Montana and South Dakota all rejected open-primary measures in 2024. Now even California wants out: a repeal initiative its backers call bipartisan was cleared for signature gathering for the 2028 ballot. Here in Massachusetts, both major parties publicly oppose Question 3.  That's because a ballot label should mean something. A party should be taking responsibility for the person behind it: In a 2000 ruling that struck down California’s blanket primary, the U.S. Supreme Court called the nominee "the party's ambassador", with "simply no substitute for a party's selecting its own candidates".  Do we want our politicians to give us more unreasonable excuses? If Question 3 passes, get ready for this sort of phrase: "Well, technically, we aren't responsible for who ends up on the ballot and what they do, because it's not like we could do anything about how the ballot works…  Oh and also, we're not responsible for anything either, that's optional now."  Yeah, I think our state should do without this, it's not the best fit for Massachusetts.

Keep the system where your vote actually matters. Don't let someone else's September decide your November. Vote No on Question 3.

Jim Regan, Willow Way