The cases for and against all-party primaries

By Bob Massie

Bob Massie is an environmental and social justice advocate.

I am a proud progressive Democrat who has run statewide three times: for lieutenant governor in 1994, briefly for the US Senate in 2011, and for governor in 2018. Though I lost each time, the experience of visiting more than 200 Massachusetts cities and towns during those campaigns allowed me to make friends among voters across the state.

Today I am an elected member of the Democratic State Committee. And it is precisely because of my deep commitment to the party and its values that I support Question 3. Massachusetts Democrats proclaim their commitment to democracy, participation, and accountability, but many have allowed our political process to steadily drift away from those principles.

Like the residents of a home who have not stepped outside to see the roof caving in, many active in politics have lost sight of how broken the system is. Primaries under the current system peak in the summer when most voters aren’t watching: Only 22.7 percent voted this year on the Tuesday before Labor Day. Once the primary is over in Massachusetts, the election usually is, too.

Did you think your vote in November would affect control of Beacon Hill? Sorry! That’s already largely been decided. This November, 113 of 160 House seats (70 percent) and 30 of 40 Senate seats (75 percent) face no general-election opponent. Why would a candidate without an opponent bother to reach out to regular voters when they know they are going to walk into the job?

Though people still mistakenly say Massachusetts is a “Democratic state,” two-thirds of voters are officially “unenrolled” (independent). The number of registered Democrats has been in freefall for decades and now stands at about 24 percent. A system built on shrinking party membership makes less sense with each election.

Question 3 puts all candidates on one primary ballot open to every voter, with the top two advancing to November. Some Democratic opponents say they fear two Republicans advancing, but many seem afraid that the general election will feature two Democrats.

All-party primaries would also shake up a system so openly secretive, unresponsive and corrupt that even the most well-meaning legislators on Beacon Hill cannot escape it.

The Speaker and Senate President control not only which bills will be considered for passage, but also the compensation that members of committees receive. About three-quarters of legislators receive stipends for posts that leaders can grant or take away. And the money isn’t negligible, adding between $22,000 and $44,000 to a roughly $82,000 base salary. Independence can cost legislators their pay. That’s wrong.

Many liberals tolerate this because Beacon Hill occasionally passes modestly progressive legislation. But major proposals on rent stabilization, plastic pollution, climate change, prison moratoria, immigrant protections, earned sick leave and real estate transfer fees have been strangled or sent to the purgatory of “further study.” It astonishes me that progressive friends, repeatedly crushed while fighting for these changes, now cling to the old system, fearing a new one’s flaws.

Voters keep telling the State House they are frustrated at its closed, often arrogant culture, but are largely ignored. The incessant fight over Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s authority to audit the legislature — approved by nearly 72 percent of voters in 2024 — exposes the same reluctance to yield institutional power.

I am saddened that so many of my committed and generous friends in the Democratic Party no longer notice that the party has largely stalled as a force for serious change. Party platforms are retooled by insiders and then ignored by elected officials. Many local committees have become sparsely attended social clubs that struggle to attract younger members. And who wants to fight hard to enlarge an already overwhelming supermajority by a seat or two on one of these committees?

Open competition could give younger activists a reason to enter politics, supporting candidates with new constituencies and granting the party renewed energy. It might even help the party win the governorship in future elections. Only four out of the last ten contests have gone to Democratic candidates.

The reasoning of Question 3 opponents is simple: They understand the system and know how to play the game, and they would prefer it over one that would dislodge the comfortable and force everyone to innovate.

Ballot initiatives like Question 3 are popular precisely because they let voters act on fundamental problems the current political process avoids. Question 3 will not, by itself, reform the Legislature’s rules, or curb leadership-controlled stipends, or reinvigorate the Democratic Party. But I believe all-party primaries will force an uncomfortable but necessary — and long overdue — reckoning.

By Richard Winger

Richard Winger founded Ballot Access News in 1985.

For nearly 40 years, I was publisher of a newsletter called Ballot Access News. I am familiar with ballot access laws, or the laws that govern which candidates may appear on the ballot, in all 50 states, and have a particular interest in access for minor party candidates. It is because of my activism on this issue that I oppose Ballot Question 3, which would create all-party primaries.

We know from the experience of California and Washington that all-party primaries — in which there is a single primary for candidates of all parties, with the top-two advancing to a general election face off — utterly devastate the ability of minor parties to participate in the general election.

Before California had a top-two system, minor parties in California were very active and engaged in elections. The Green Party elected a state legislator in California in 1999. That legislator, Audie Bock, representing Berkeley and Oakland, was elected under the old blanket primary system, in which all voters got the same primary ballot, but the top vote-getting candidate from each party advanced to the general election. She only got 8 percent of all votes in the first round, but she advanced to the general election and defeated the Democratic nominee. Under top-two she would not have made it to the general election.

Before California had a top-two system, many voters enjoyed being able to vote for minor parties in the general election. In the state’s last election before top-two passed in 2010, minor party nominees received over 500,000 votes in each of eight statewide races, and in two of those races, the minor party vote was over 1,000,000. (This is based on my analysis of official voting data.)

But since top-two started, there have been zero minor party candidates on the general election ballot, except in two legislative races where the major parties failed to run a candidate, according to my analysis.

The Washington State experience is similar, again based on my analysis of voting data. (You can see some of this analysis in past issues of Ballot Access News.) There has been no instance of a minor party member qualifying for the November election, except in cases in which one of the two major parties didn’t place any candidate on the primary ballot.

California’s Peace and Freedom, Libertarian, and Green Parties have sued in federal court to overturn the top-two system. Though a judge dismissed some claims of their suit, evidence in the case confirms my assertions.

Question 3 even impacts the 2028 presidential election in Massachusetts. Currently, there is a fairly easy way for a minor party to be a qualified party in Massachusetts: If it polls 3 percent for any statewide office in a midterm year, then it becomes a qualified party for the upcoming presidential election, and it can place its presidential nominee on the November ballot with no petition. That party also gets its own presidential primary.

The Libertarian Party, of which I have long been a member, has been using that characteristic of the law for almost 20 years, mainly to be on the ballot in presidential years. It is not uncommon for a minor party to poll 3 percent for statewide races like auditor, treasurer, or attorney general because voters don’t care as passionately about which party wins those races and are often willing to vote for a minor party candidate. The Libertarian Party once again expects to win 3 percent this year in the Massachusetts race for auditor.

But the Libertarian Party will lose that pathway to winning a place on the presidential ballot of 2028 if Question 3 passes, because it did not run anyone in the September primary. Though the party could regain a presidential ballot spot in 2032, it will be able to do so only if it wins 3 percent of the vote in a statewide race in 2028. Other minor parties will be in the same boat.

Massachusetts elections are uncompetitive because there are so few candidates on the ballot, especially for the US House and the state Legislature. Indeed, Massachusetts is the only state in the nation in which most US House elections only have one candidate on the ballot in November.

The best way to get more candidates on the ballot would be to lower the petition requirements. Unfortunately, Question 3 does not do that. And so it won’t fix the problem it is intended to fix: too few candidates.

By Danielle Allen

Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard, director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, and chair of the Yes on 3 campaign.

Massachusetts likes to say it leads the nation, but when it comes to political competition, we’re dead last.

Since 2014, more than half of all races here have had just one candidate. When there’s a primary, that is often the decisive election — meaning about one in five voters decides who represents everyone. Popular, dynamic challengers who come within a hair of beating the same-party incumbent in low-attention, low-turnout September primaries get sent home before ever meeting the fuller, more representative electorate of November.

Many see these odds and never run at all. And on Beacon Hill, urgent priorities — and even the most common-sense fixes — stall session after session. We don’t have a shortage of good people or good ideas. We have a shortage of competition. And when politicians don’t have to compete, they don’t have to listen or deliver.

I am the convening chair of the “Yes on 3” campaign for Massachusetts’ Ballot Question. Our coalition proposes to upgrade Massachusetts democracy by replacing conventional party primaries with an all-party primary. In an all-party primary, all candidates appear in front of all voters on the same first ballot — Democrats, Republicans, Greens, and anyone else. Voters pick their favorite, and the top two vote-getters then advance to the general election in November, when the most voters turn out.

This change would upgrade our democracy by giving voters real choices in November and greatly strengthening the incentive for political leaders to listen to all voters. After California changed to all-party primaries, the increase in competition was “substantial” — and the real competition moved to November, where turnout is highest.

Yet change is hard and is itself anxiety-inducing, and I have heard some people in Massachusetts voice a very specific worry: What about California, where for a while this year it looked as though two Republicans might advance in the governor’s race in a heavily Democratic state? It didn’t happen. Democrat Xavier Becerra finished first. Across more than 2,000 top-two elections in Washington and California, the majority party getting locked out of the general election has happened only three times, according to our group’s review of California elections.

We built Question 3 for Massachusetts, to ensure that the rare outcome becomes rarer still. Our version prints candidates’ endorsements right on the primary ballot, so voters see which organizations stand with whom. It keeps write-in options in November. And it keeps our tough ballot-access rules as a way of avoiding crowded, confusing fields: 10,000 verified signatures to run for governor here, for instance, compared with just 65 signatures and a small filing fee in California. The result is a primary with real choices, rich information for voters, and strong candidates, not a crowded free-for-all.

Also, on our measure, any narrowing of the field will happen in daylight. Today, a few thousand convention delegates, roughly one-eighth of one percent of the electorate, can keep statewide candidates off the ballot entirely. Under Question 3, only voters can decide who moves forward — they see the candidates running and which organizations have endorsed them and make the call. Power shifts from insiders to the people.

As former governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick put it, “Politics nowadays is less about ‘red’ versus ‘blue’ than about insiders versus outsiders.” That’s why Patrick and his one-time opponent, former governor Charlie Baker, have united to endorse Question 3. They’ve seen how our politics works — and how it too often doesn’t. Same with other members of our coalition like the NAACP New England Area Conference, the Western Mass Building Trades, former MassGOP chair Jennifer Nassour and MassDems party chair Steve Grossman, and many others.

These are party and political leaders who know strong parties don’t fear voters. They earn them — and with 67 percent of voters in our state independent, the parties need reform to stay relevant. They need to focus on the people, not on protecting the gatekeeping power of insiders.

In an anxious political time, even an awful status quo can feel comfortable because it’s familiar. But we’re caught in a trap and we need to free ourselves. We deserve an election system that gives voters real choices and gives our legislature a reason to listen to voters.

A yes vote on Question 3 will do both.

By Jim Stergios

Party primaries favor the party faithful, and in this populist moment they are narrowing the general election field to candidates who reflect partisan extremes. Supporters of Question 3 promise that open primaries will change this cycle, yielding more competitive elections and candidates with broader appeal.

But if we were honest, much of the proposal’s popular appeal lies in the satisfaction of punching the two major parties in the nose.

California and Washington, which have used top-two primaries for more than a decade, provide little evidence of greater political moderation. In heavily Democratic districts, many general elections resemble party primaries: a contest between “left and lefter.”

Crowded primaries can also split the vote, advancing candidates receiving only a small fraction of ballots cast. And by weakening party nominations, Question 3 risks further fragmenting voters into personality-driven factions and coalitions built around passing controversies.

I fully understand the distaste for parties. They suck, and have for decades. That’s why more than two-thirds of Massachusetts voters are unenrolled — the nation’s highest share and more than twice the rate among states that report party affiliation.

But Question 3 won’t address Massachusetts’ larger challenge. Since the pandemic, America’s domestic economic and intellectual power has been shifting toward the Sunbelt. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has experienced job loss and a cratering of business creation.

Universities like Northeastern have opened campuses in Florida, and this month Carnegie Mellon announced plans to establish a full-scale research university in Miami. These developments encapsulate the challenge: Florida’s growing population, businesses and wealth are attracting research institutions that will produce skilled graduates, patents and startups.

Massachusetts once embodied that story.

After three postwar decades of industrial decline, during which Boston’s population fell from 800,000 to 563,000, investment capital, universities and medical talent combined to transform the state into a powerhouse in technology, biotech, advanced manufacturing and finance during the 1980s and 1990s.

State policies helped drive that transformation. Today, global causes, national slogans, and local disputes crowd out the debate over Massachusetts’ future, even as high housing, electricity, healthcare, and government costs are driving away businesses and residents.

Massachusetts needs more than feel-good electoral reform. It needs a political culture that recognizes the commonwealth is competing nationally for talent, investment and ideas. Florida’s rise exemplifies the importance of state policy — and the Sunbelt states’ challenge to Massachusetts’ economic position.

Massachusetts needs competing visions for its future. Individual candidates and advocacy groups can’t supply them alone. However much we dislike parties, their job is to recruit talent, reconcile competing interests and explain how, for example, to deliver and pay for cheaper electricity and better schools.

How do we rebuild state parties capable of developing and carrying out their own governing agendas? Start by challenging incumbency. Massachusetts’ September primary leaves challengers barely two months before November. Moving it earlier — and considering term limits for legislators and statewide officers — would directly address barriers to competition.

Money matters, too. It shapes political careers, attracts talent and sustains the institutions where agendas are developed.

Massachusetts’ annual contribution limit for state candidates was $1,000 in 1975. It still is: the equivalent of $165 in 1975 dollars. Today, across primary and general elections, donors can give $7,000 to a federal candidate, but only $2,000 to a Massachusetts candidate. Individuals can give $44,300 annually to a national party committee, and $5,000 to a Massachusetts state party committee.

Raising Massachusetts contribution limits to federal levels, with real-time donor disclosure, would strengthen candidate recruitment and state parties. The larger goal is financial independence from national parties and their networks. Without it, Massachusetts parties will keep parroting national talking points instead of doing the hard work of developing their own governing visions, uniting competing interests and mobilizing the public to support action.

Our parties are deeply flawed, and voting for Question 3 may feel like a satisfying punch in the nose. But institutions like political parties can help Massachusetts regain its competitiveness. Weakening them looks more like cutting off our noses to spite our faces.

Trivia by Victoria White

With Halloween creeping up, Salem has once again become a hotspot for tourists flocking to get their fill of tricks and treats. Salem is such a staple in people’s October plans because of the Salem Witch Trials, where 14 women and five men were executed for witchcraft between 1692 and 1693. Which of these is NOT a way the alleged witches died?

1. Hanging
2. Being pressed to death by rocks
3. Burning at the stake
4. Succumbing to harsh prison conditions

Check back next week for the answer.

Last week’s answer: The correct answer was 1.

While the phrase “love is blind” is believed to have a much longer history, its first written account is in “The Merchant’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer, part of “The Canterbury Tales” collection. Since these stories were hand-written before the invention of the printing press, publication dates are hard to nail down, but at least one version of the story was published in 1477. Here’s the original line: “For loue is blynd alday and may nat see.” William Shakespeare popularized the phrase with three of his plays, but Chaucer beat him to putting it on paper.

This is an excerpt from Globe Opinion’s weekly politics newsletter Right, Left, and Center. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Wednesday.