This November’s Ballot Question 3 proposes a non-partisan, top-two primary election. The supposed benefit is to encourage more options for Massachusetts voters, since so many legislative seats in our general elections have a single candidate. But the actual effect is to push more choice out of the general with its larger turnout, and into the primary, where fewer voters participate.

The proposal’s biggest problem is that the primary will be pick-one voting, which means vote-splitting among similar candidates will be rampant. Voters will then strategically choose one of the perceived (poll-leading) front-runners so that the least-evil of them makes it into the general. The top two are therefore not necessarily the actual choice of a majority of voters.

The real problem is a Republican Party so weak that it doesn’t even bother to field many legislative candidates in the general, where any warm body could walk in. The actual solution is their lack of moderate, Charlie-Baker-like candidates. And with Question 3, they fear they’ll be shut out of the general even in Republican-leaning areas, where two Democrats might advance instead. They are therefore opposed to this proposal.

But if not Republicans, then more centrist parties such as the Forward Party could fill the gap. But such a primary also means that third-party candidates and independents will almost certainly be shut out of the general, where they can now participate with higher visibility. So, almost all of these parties also oppose Question 3.

Who’s in favor of Question 3? For one, the billionaires who are funding its promotion. If adopted, they will be able to underwrite the campaigns of their favorite candidates with huge amounts of cash, often vaulting them to the top of the polls with negative ads and into the general.

Vote “no” on Question 3, as it’s a bad idea! It’ll increase the likelihood of vote-splitting, strategic voting, non-majority winners, alternative candidate shut-out, and negative campaigning. These are all fixed by a better reform, ranked-choice voting, and could make that harder to implement.

Andy Anderson

Amherst