| Zane Gustafson | The Urbanist |
From Seattle to Spokane and everywhere in between, August’s primary results show an electorate yearning for more options, and proportional ranked choice voting is the way to make viable candidates from outside the two-party system.
Unfortunately, the structure of Washington’s top-two voting system is artificially keeping the two-party system in place and contributing to the widespread political cynicism that contributes to many people opting-out of voting. Voter turnout in the 2026 primary was just 37%, lower than the more than 40% turnout in midterm primaries in 2022 and 2018.
”Washington could send a multiparty delegation to Congress
By implementing a proportional voting system, such as proportional ranked choice voting (RCV), Washington could send a multiparty delegation to Congress and have a formal multiparty politics in the State Legislature. This would help heal our political cynicism by providing voters real options beyond the two-party system.