This week, I voted in my second California gubernatorial primary. As the strategy director at a nonprofit focused on youth civic engagement, you’d think I’d be enthusiastic. But my peers and I are exhausted. Our primary system is ineffectual at best and—after countless conversations with other young voters—I believe that unless we improve our primary system, our disillusionment and apathy towards electoral politics is doomed to continue. Our leaders need to decide if that’s a price they’re willing to pay.
My generation is marked by several once-in-a-lifetime crises: pandemics, recessions, the AI boom, civil rights reductions, just to name a few. Many of these inherited problems have popular solutions—most Americans are united on increasing the minimum wage, reining in Big Tech, and age-limits for elected officials, among other common-sense policies. But election after election, little fundamentally changes—if anything, wins are delivered to the corporate lobbyists bankrolling these races.
This disconnect between popular policy and implementation has left young people doubtful about whether our votes are truly the silver bullets we were promised in grade school. Operating our elections with the familiar “business as usual” attitude amidst these time-sensitive crises all but guarantees we will continue to implement milquetoast solutions that don’t meet the moment, fueling the chronic exhaustion young people associate with electoral politics. This risks entrenching us all deeper into crises none of us will have the energy to solve.
But we know there’s another way—we’ve seen it. Since watching Zohran Mamdani’s historic electoral victory, young people everywhere have been yearning for a similar cascade of hope and novelty to take our communities by storm. Unfortunately, California doesn’t have the tools to carry on the so-called “zoh-mentum.” Because our California primaries advance the two candidates who receive the greatest share of votes—even if the shares are considerably below a majority—we are forced to consider which candidates reasonably have the best chance, how crowded the battlefield is, and our chances of spoiling the election with a “wasted” vote.
We’re effectively encouraged to vote not for whom we actually want to win, but for the most “pragmatic” option: in the case of this week’s election, the lesser of sixty-one evils. Especially with outsized corporate influence pouring into our elections, this feels much more like placing our bets than participating in a democracy. Acting at odds with our values is a bitter pill young people don’t want to swallow, certainly not when a viable alternative exists, as we saw in New York.
Enter: ranked choice voting. Not only would this instant-runoff primary system avoid the danger of a largely unpopular Republican governor, but it would also help restore young people’s faith in elections.
A 2021 study confirmed young people are considerably more likely to vote in elections that employ ranked choice voting than traditional elections. Turnout increases across the line, including for voters of color. This is in part attributable to the increased voter engagement required to perform well in these races. It is not enough to be financed by powerful special interests, backed by major parties, or to have a killer social media strategy (though these are all still valuable). This system encourages candidates to make genuine, consistent efforts to engage all of the electorate. It is a refreshing change of pace to see politicians engage with us like human beings, to really work to earn our vote rather than take it for granted.
To be sure, young people are not known for being consistent, active voters. But this moment demands more of us. We should be clear-eyed about where we are as a nation and use that as a compass. We are amidst democratic backsliding and cannot risk sub-par turnout, especially when we have the tools to increase it considerably.
I’m reminded of the age-old adage my father used to repeat to my sisters and me: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Young people are not convinced our elections are immune to this theory.
Despite my generation’s notable political awareness, we remain skeptical of electoralism. Leaders continue to scratch their heads at low youth turnout.
For the first time in recent memory (for Gen Z, anyways), California was faced this week with the real possibility of a Republican governor: not because the majority of Californians favor a Republican candidate, but because we have inherited an electoral system that is not well-suited to reflect the opinions of the electorate.
That’s not a system that inspires confidence, so let’s build a system that does.