A new SurveyUSA poll finds overwhelming majorities of DC voters say ranked choice voting was easy, support using it, and want independents included in taxpayer-funded primaries.
Undoing Top Two means telling 6.9 million independent voters they may no longer participate in primary elections unless they sign up with a club they have already decided not to join.
New York, Maryland, and Utah are holding publicly funded primaries today—but the voters who refuse to join a party remain locked outside the contests that often decide who governs them.
Asked about the practical costs of running without party infrastructure, Endicott named the obvious one—money—but also pointed to a less tangible benefit: independence itself.
In DC’s first ranked choice election, tens of thousands of voters stayed in the fight after their first choice fell short—something the old plurality system would have treated as a dead end.
This growing shift raises a fundamental question: Can a system designed by partisans for partisans remain legitimate when the country is going independent?
Voters back open primaries, fairer ballot access, and more power at the ballot box as the Charter Revision Commission weighs whether to let residents vote on election reform in November.
New polling finds most registered Democrats support letting independents vote in Democratic primaries — and nearly 4 in 10 say they only registered Democratic because New York City gives them no other meaningful choice.
Steve Peace
