Incentives Matter, and other Closing Arguments for Yes on Question 3 in Massachusetts
Published initially on Substack
It’s been a great fall for democracy in Massachusetts. Nine ballot questions are a lot to handle, but they’ve sparked remarkable public dialogue about big issues. The debate has been particularly rich over Question 3, which would replace separate party primaries for state elections with a single all-party primary.
I’m a Yes-on-3 believer, a signer of the original petition, and a member of the Coalition for Question 3. Based on 27 years of experience in election reform—including ten years on the board of Common Cause Massachusetts and nine years running Election Reformers Network—I’m convinced that Question 3 will improve elections and democracy in Massachusetts.
Many compelling arguments for Yes on 3 have already appeared on Substack channels, op-ed pages, and the Yes campaign’s website. With just days left in the campaign, I offer three key arguments that to me have not received enough attention.
Point 1. Incentives matter.
It’s worth looking at Louisiana, which until recently used a system broadly similar to what Question 3 proposes: no separate party primaries and all voters choosing from among all candidates. That structure gives candidates an incentive to appeal to the whole electorate, not just voters who turn out for their party’s primary.
Those incentives help explain why Louisiana was the only state in the Deep South where the legislature voted to expand Medicaid, a policy popular with the majority but not with Republican primary voters. More broadly, under this system, Louisiana’s legislature routinely ranked as the 2nd or 3rd least polarized in the nation.
Louisiana no longer has an all-party primary system for all elections, and the reason is instructive. The system was dismantled and replaced with separate party primaries (like Massachusetts has) to allow a challenger endorsed by Donald Trump to take on and defeat Senator Bill Cassidy in the primary this spring. Cassidy had voted to impeach Trump and also opposed Trump’s appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Trump has taken advantage of the party primary system to challenge every legislator who voted to impeach him—challenges that are much more difficult to win in states that do not have separate party primaries.
It’s not possible to say for sure that one state will closely follow the pattern of another, but broadly speaking, separate party primaries incentivize behaviors that can increase polarization, while all-party primaries create greater incentives to solve problems and respond to all voters.
Point 2. The facts in California support Yes on 3.
California has been getting a lot of attention in the debate about Question 3, because, since 2012, it has used a “top-two” primary, a system very similar to what’s proposed in Massachusetts. Here are some facts about how it’s working in California:
- The number of legislative primary races with any competition at all in California stood at 9% before top-two was implemented, it’s now over 40%. (This figure stands at just 10% in Massachusetts.)
- California ranks #1 in the nation in legislative competitiveness, it ranked 11th before top-two began. (Massachusetts ranks 2nd to last.)
- In the most recent polling (May 2026), 59 percent of likely California voters say the top-two system has been mostly a good thing for their state, compared to 39 percent who think it’s been mostly a bad thing.
- California’s legislature is made up of 49% women and 57% people of color. (In Massachusetts it’s 30% women and 17% people of color.)
- The “lockout” scenario people have written about—races where no candidate from the stronger party reaches the final round—has happened just 3 times in 2,300 elections in California and Washington.
- Researchers have found evidence of the incentive shift discussed above in Louisiana also happening in California. Responsiveness to the full electorate, not the primary electorate, likely helped legislators pass recent ambitious housing reform legislation.
Point 3. One of the best features of Question 3 has barely been discussed.
Question 3 has a feature that’s rarely discussed: minor parties and advocacy groups can gain attention for themselves and the candidates they support through ballot endorsements, while also increasing the information available to voters.
Under Question 3, all parties and “political designations” can make endorsements, and those endorsements can appear directly on the primary ballot if the candidate and the endorsing party both agree to the endorsement. Candidates can accept and display multiple endorsements.
Under this system, known as fusion voting, a candidate can receive endorsements from both a major party and a minor party (such as the Republican and Libertarian parties). Fusion voting is a recognized mechanism for strengthening minor parties by allowing them to support competitive candidates while maintaining their distinct political identities.
The law also allows for civic organizations to gain the status of a “political designation” and also endorse candidates (again, if the candidate accepts). This approach gives more information to voters, helps organizations gain name recognition, and when those candidates win, it gives the legislature information about the causes voters support.
This little-noticed element provides a great opportunity for ranked-choice voting advocates in Massachusetts. An organization like Voter Choice Massachusetts could identify candidates who support RCV and endorse them on the ballot. And if those candidates win, legislators would have a clearer signal that voters care about RCV and more reason to act on the RCV home rule petitions that are currently gathering dust in the Beacon Hill inbox.
Conclusion: More information is good for democracy.
At its heart, Question 3 is about more than changing the mechanics of a primary. It can incentivize problem solving, strengthen political organizing, and give voters more ways to learn about candidates. More information won’t make every voter agree or remove money and insider strategies from politics. But it can help voters make better-informed choices and give candidates stronger reasons to listen to more people.
That is good for voters, good for accountability, and good for democracy. Vote yes on 3!
This article was initially published on ERN's Substack channel, The Guardrail.