Vote splitting makes our top-two primary a coin toss. Approval voting lets voters support every candidate they like—so the most broadly supported candidates advance.
See the Problem →California's top-two primary forces voters to pick one candidate. When several similar pragmatic candidates run, they split the vote among themselves—even if they collectively represent the majority. The result? Extreme candidates with a concentrated minority base sail through to the general.
Toggle between the two systems below to see how the same electorate produces radically different outcomes:
Top Two Advancing: Hartley (Extremist) & Voss (Demagogue).
The four pragmatic reform candidates split 58% of the vote among themselves, but both general election slots go to the populist faction with only 42% combined support. The majority is locked out.
This isn't a theoretical risk. Vote splitting under California's top-two primary has already produced absurd outcomes, and is threatening to do so again in the biggest race in the state:
Eight Democrats are splitting the primary vote in a state that hasn't elected a Republican governor in 20 years. Statistical models give a 10–18% chance that two Republicans advance to the general—locking out every Democrat. State party chair Rusty Hicks has publicly begged candidates to drop out. Planned Parenthood issued a similar plea. And yet the candidates remain, because no one wants to be the one who sacrifices their campaign to fix a broken system. Under approval voting, this problem simply wouldn't exist—voters could support every Democrat they found acceptable, and the field's fragmentation wouldn't matter.
In one of the most conservative districts in California, nearly 60% of voters picked a Republican—but six GOP candidates split that support into tiny slivers. Two Democrats, with just 22% and 19% of the vote, took both spots. A majority-Republican district was guaranteed to elect a Democrat. The Republican Senate leader actually funded mailers boosting one Democrat over the other, because his own party's candidates had already been eliminated by the system's design flaw.
The current system doesn't just fail to produce moderates—it can hand elections to the wrong party entirely. And the only defense is backroom coordination and candidates voluntarily dropping out. That's not democracy. That's a game of chicken.
Most ballot measures are pages of dense legalese. This one could fit on a napkin. Read it yourself:
The People of the State of California find that the top-two open primary system, while intended to produce broadly representative candidates, is susceptible to vote splitting—whereby multiple similar candidates divide their shared support, allowing candidates with narrow minority backing to advance to the general election.
Section 5100 of the Elections Code is amended to read:
In all open primary elections for state and federal offices in California, each voter may vote for one candidate one or more candidates. The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes shall advance to the general election.
No new voting equipment, ballot design changes, or tabulation procedures are required. Existing ballots shall be updated to read: "Vote for one or more."
The ballot looks identical. The only change: instead of "vote for one," it says "vote for one or more." The top two advance. That's it. No complicated rankings, no multi-round elimination, no new machines. Same ballots, same scanners, same election night.
Voters can always still vote for just one candidate if they want. But they can also back their honest favorite and a safer fallback—without fear of "wasting" their vote or playing spoiler.
Vote for one or more.
First: the current system already produces same-party top-twos—and sometimes for the wrong party, as we just showed. At least with approval voting, the two who advance actually have broad support.
But second, and more importantly: same-party general elections in safe districts are a feature, not a bug:
Under the current system, the general election is a foregone conclusion—the Democrat wins by 30 points. Your vote is meaningless. But if two Democrats advance, you can pick the one closer to the center. The one more focused on fiscal responsibility, less ideological. You suddenly have real influence over who represents you.
Same logic in reverse. If two Republicans advance, you can help elect the one who believes in rule of law, respects institutions, and governs pragmatically—rather than the one running on pure grievance. The minority party becomes a moderating force.
Today, most California general elections are rubber stamps. The real contest is the primary, where vote splitting makes the outcome almost random. Approval voting makes every voter—including the minority party—a meaningful participant in who governs. And the general election between two finalists is a format voters already understand: compare two options, pick the one closer to your values. We're just making sure the right two get there.
Most political spending is symptomatic—backing individual candidates, fighting individual policies. Approval voting is structural. It changes the incentive landscape for every candidate in every race. A single ballot measure reforms the entire primary system at once. What other lever can you pull that has this kind of leverage?
RCV would require a total overhaul: new ballot designs, new tabulation software, multi-round elimination, and either a general election with 5+ candidates—making voter decision-making harder and more cognitively demanding—or a single election with no general at all. California already has a top-two system. Voters already know how to compare two finalists, and that simplicity is actually valuable: we can generally make a pretty good assessment of which of just two candidates is more in our own interest. Approval voting keeps all of that intact. The only change is three words on the primary ballot: "vote for one or more." Same ballots, same scanners, same counting, same two-candidate general election. It's a virtually invisible reform in terms of logistics—and a profound one in terms of outcomes.
Pragmatic legislators who survive on broad support are more likely to engage with evidence, negotiate in good faith, and create stable regulatory environments. Extremists elected by a fragmented minority have no incentive to cooperate—and every incentive to grandstand. The business case for governance by consensus is the business case for predictability.
No—because it genuinely helps them too. Approval voting gives third-party and independent candidates their true measure of support for the first time. Greens, progressives, and grassroots candidates no longer have to worry about being spoilers. The exit poll data below shows candidates like Jill Stein had ~52% approval in a CES survey vs. 3% under plurality. This reform reveals democracy, it doesn't suppress it.
Fargo, ND adopted approval voting by 64% in 2018. St. Louis, MO adopted it by 68% in 2020. These were the first two cities in the U.S. to put it on the ballot, and both passed by supermajorities. Voters understand it instantly and prefer it overwhelmingly.
Approval voting isn't a partisan idea. It's supported by decades of mathematical research, real-world exit polls, and computational simulations. Here's what the evidence shows.
On Election Day 2012, the Politics and Electoral Reform Working Group of Occupy Wall Street polled 507 voters inside polling places in Manhattan's 69th Assembly District, asking each voter to cast ballots under four different voting methods. Yes, Obama crushed Romney here—we're not claiming these results are nationally representative. That's not the point.
The point is what happened to the minor-party candidates. Same voters, same place, same time—but under approval and score voting, Green Party candidate Jill Stein went from 3% to over half as much support as Obama. That's the difference between "irrelevant fringe candidate" and "backed by a majority of voters." Different voting method, radically improved accuracy for measuring what voters actually think.
Source: Occupy Wall Street Politics & Electoral Reform Working Group, 2012 Election Day exit poll (Manhattan, NY)
Voter Satisfaction Efficiency (VSE) measures how close a voting method comes to always electing the candidate that would make the most voters satisfied. 100% = a perfect mind-reader. 0% = picking at random. Higher is better.
The solid bar shows performance with honest voters. The faded bar extends to show performance even when voters are strategic. Approval voting holds up remarkably well under strategy—unlike plurality, which is essentially designed around strategic behavior.
Source: Dr. Jameson Quinn (Harvard Statistics), Voter Satisfaction Efficiency simulations · electionscience.github.io/vse-sim
A California statewide ballot measure is a serious undertaking. Here's what it takes, phase by phase.
The pitch to business and tech leaders: this is the highest-leverage structural reform available. One ballot measure changes the incentive structure of every primary election in the state. Targets include the Y Combinator network, GrowSF and affiliated donors, Reid Hoffman's foundations, tech executives frustrated with CA governance on housing and permitting, and the Center for Election Science for institutional support.
The reform must not be perceived as a corporate takeover of elections. It genuinely isn't—but perception matters. Endorsements should span the spectrum: good-government organizations (League of Women Voters, Common Cause), progressive reform groups (demonstrating that it helps third parties), Republican reformers (the minority-party moderation argument), academic endorsements from voting theorists, and local elected officials who've experienced vote splitting firsthand.
California requires signatures equal to 5% of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election—roughly 550,000–600,000 signatures. Standard practice is to collect 150–200% of the requirement to account for invalid signatures.
This is the single largest campaign expense: $3–5 per signature × 900,000–1,000,000 signatures = $2.7M–$5M. Volunteer supplementation helps but cannot replace paid gathering at statewide scale.
Signature gathering ($3M) + minimal campaign ($2M) + foundation/legal/team ($1M). Viable if the measure faces no organized opposition and the political environment is favorable. Relies heavily on earned media and the simplicity of the pitch.
Signature gathering ($4M) + full campaign ($5–6M) + foundation ($1.5M). Required if RCV advocates or party insiders mount an opposition campaign. Standard for a contested California ballot measure.
Aggressive. Requires immediate fundraising and a compressed signature gathering window. The advantage is that the governor's race vote-splitting disaster is fresh in voters' minds. The risk is insufficient time to build a coalition and raise enough money to survive opposition.
More realistic. Allows 18+ months for fundraising, coalition building, and signature gathering. The 2026 governor's race outcome provides a case study. Aligns with the presidential election cycle, which means higher turnout and a more representative electorate.
Begin foundation work immediately targeting the November 2028 ballot, but remain open to accelerating to 2026 if fundraising exceeds expectations. The 2026 governor's race is the marketing—the 2028 ballot is the product.
Seed funding ($500K–$1M): Legal drafting, team hiring, polling, and campaign infrastructure. This is the phase where the measure becomes real—a filed initiative with an official title, a professional team, and polling data that proves it can win.
Signature gathering ($3–5M): The mechanical cost of qualifying for the ballot. Known, predictable expense with established vendors.
Campaign ($2–6M): The cost of winning. Scales with opposition intensity.
You've seen what vote splitting does. You've seen the data. You've read the measure—it's three words. The question is whether California's tech and business leaders are going to keep pouring money into symptomatic fights, or fund the one structural reform that fixes the game itself.
One ballot measure. Every primary. Every race. Structural change that outlasts any single election cycle. This is the highest-leverage political investment available.
Let's Talk →