"This Christmas, let's gift California an insurance policy. No, not an insurance policy for our homes those are too expensive, if you can find one in the first place. Instead, let's get an insurance policy to protect California against Trump and his acolytes. To secure the policy, the legislature must pass a bill to allow write-in candidates to run in our November elections."
"Since 2011, California has had a voter-approved, nonpartisan system that puts all candidates of all parties on the same ballot in a first-round election. Next year's first-round election is in June. Then the top two candidates, regardless of party, advance to the November elections. And it's only two candidates. Write-in candidates cannot join the ballot. Opinions differ on whether the top-two has fulfilled its promise of producing more moderate elected officials."
"In these cases, the majority party candidates can split up the vote into small shares, allowing the two minority party candidates to finish first and second thus locking the party most people support out of the runoff. Such a lockout of the majority party has happened four times, most recently in 2022 in a Republican state Senate district, where two Democrats squeezed through in a field with six Republicans."
California's top-two primary places all candidates on one June ballot and advances the top two to November, with no write-in candidates allowed for the runoff. That system can produce anti-democratic outcomes when a majority party's field fragments and two minority-party candidates advance, excluding the majority from the runoff. Such lockouts have occurred four times, including a 2022 state Senate race where two Democrats advanced from a six-Republican field. A legislative change to permit write-in candidates in November would allow additional options in runoffs and help guard against the election of strong Trump-aligned contenders in 2026's wide-open governor race.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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