Our top two advance primary is doing a disservice to voters, especially in crowded races.
With Seattle’s 2021 mayoral election looming and Mayor Jenny Durkan’s announcement she’s not running for reelection, the field could become quite crowded in the next few months. The 2017 election that also featured no incumbent. Durkan and Cary Moon ran in the general election, but before that we utilized a top two blanket primary to determine who would participate in that general election. In a rather crowded field, our system produced a result that advanced the winners of only 45.5% of the vote, sidelining the votes of a majority of 2017 primary voters.