VOTE NO On
Jungle Primaries

Don’t let billionaires buy our elections.

WHY VOTE NO

1. Follow the Money

A tiny group of wealthy donors, most of them private-equity executives are funding this initiative. The elections under this system will give more power to big money. When a few millionaires and billionaires pay to rewrite the rules of an election, the rest of us should ask why. Read more.

2. Bad for democracy

Under this system, November elections can come down to two candidates from the same party — and everyone else is locked off the final ballot, including all third party and independent candidates. That is less choice for voters, not more.

3. A national experiment, that voters keep rejecting

This is a national playbook that has been run in other states and failed in 2024. Massachusetts is being used as the next test case. Voters in 2024 rejected it, and Massachusetts voters will do the same.

There are several large private equity donors attempting to influence our elections, and install a system that will give wealthy donors and corporate PACs more influence in our elections. You can look at their contributors on their OCPF account - https://www.ocpf.us/filers?q=95538
A: No, jungle primaries do not allow voters to rank candidates, and they introduce many of the problems that Ranked Choice Voting solves. Top-two style primaries still run the risk of spoiler candidates and vote-splitting between like-minded candidates, and also can incentivize gaming of the system by wealthy dark money donors. Switching our elections to Top-Two Non-Partisan Primaries would also likely make it more difficult to pass RCV through a future ballot measure, as observed in California which uses Top-Two statewide.
A: It’s the same family of idea, and the record is mixed at best. Where it’s been tried, it hasn’t delivered the better politics it promised, and in 2024 voters in multiple states rejected new versions of it, sometimes by wide margins, even when the backers vastly outspent the opposition.
We also saw the direct issues with this election format in California, where there were multiple candidates from one ideology, and 2 from a different ideology, and there was pressure on voters and donors to get behind the one candidate who had the best funding. The end result was the two best funded candidates made it through to the general, and third place was a self funded billionaire.
This question would not change the ballot access laws that currently make it difficult for minor parties to compete in Massachusetts. However, because only two candidates would advance from the primary to the general, it almost guarantees that smaller parties with less resources can be shut out of the general election completely.