Top-two primaries in California and Washington

California and Washington hold primary
elections in which the top two candidates
advance to the final election. There
are advantages in doing it this way,
but there can be a problem if there are
two candidates from one party and
several candidates from the other party.
If those several candidates split
their vote, then the two final elecition
candidates would be from the other party.
I don’t think there is anything inherently
wrong with both final election candidates
coming from the same party if that party
has earned that status by collectively
receiving more votes than the candidates
of the other party, but if this happens
only because of the vote in the other party
being split then this is a problem.
The results from the California primary
avoided this problem (at least his year; see

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-primary-rules-election-analysis-20180606-story.html
See also

https://douglasadowning.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/the-problem-with-a-5-candidate-top-two-primary/

……………..
–Douglas Downing
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