How did we get here? Of all the smart and talented people in our country, we are stuck with two presidential candidates that a majority of Americans don’t want. Why can this happen?

The answer is quite clear. A small number of ideologically extreme voters pick our presidential candidates via the primary process, and the two main political parties limit the choices we have.

We American voters absolutely need more (and better) candidate options. The best way we can do this is to have open nonpartisan primaries where we all get to choose our candidates, instead of a fragmented party-based system that excludes potential candidates and voters. It would basically be like the first step of a runoff, where anyone who gets a qualifying number of signatures is eligible, and the top candidates chosen by the whole electorate make it to the finals. I’m pretty sure we would not have seen a rematch of Trump and Biden come out of this format.

Even if a third party or independent ticket with an intelligent, experienced and charismatic presidential candidate joined the race right now, people would be afraid to vote for them. They would fear that by voting for anyone other than a Republican or Democrat, they would be throwing away their vote. So many would instead hold their nose and vote for the major party candidate they prefer. We can eliminate this “spoiler effect” by using Ranked Choice Voting…where you rank the candidates in order of preference, and if your first choice gets knocked out your vote goes to your highest remaining choice. Then voters would be free to vote their true preference.

Our current system has high barriers to entry, imposed by the Republican and Democrat lawmakers…the one thing they can agree on is that they don’t want any more outside competition for their positions. The status quo duopoly works quite well for them maintaining their grip on power, but not for actually governing or solving problems. By pushing through these straightforward process reforms, we can have more high quality candidates. By eliminating the partisan primaries that cause politicians to pander to the extreme bases of their parties, we can allow our leaders to come back to the center, and work together on solutions that help us all. I hope you will join me to help make these ideas a reality across our nation.

Organizations providing more info and opportunities to help:

• Rank MI vote: rankmivote.org
• Voters Not Politicians: votersnotpoliticians.com
• Represent US: represent.us
• Fair Vote: fairvote.org