As of tonight, Washington has experienced its 5th cycle using the Top Two system. While most of the races featured familiar Democratic-Republican match-ups, three others stand-out: a couple of intraparty congressional races (one with two Democrats, and the other with two Republicans) that are the hallmark exhibits of the opportunities Top Two affords; and a state executive race that showcases the potential for misfires. We consider their implications below.

The patterns that are emerging based on the reported votes from states that have been the earliest to close their polls, relative to those states’ partisanship, may offer early indications of where the popular vote will wind up nationally.

After each Presidential cycle, FairVote looks at the Presidential vote returns to determine the partisanship of each state; that is, the amount the Democratic and Republican candidates got relative to the national Two-Party vote share. This turns out to be highly predictive of the odds of that state being a contested battleground in the next election.

In the The Atlantic, Brownstein and Askarinam examine recent voting trends showing that Democrats have gained support in urban areas, whilst Republicans have gained in rural and blue-collar areas.

FiveThirtyEight's podcast discussed Maine ballot Question 5 - it's the laboratory of democracy at work.

Professors Hersh and Fraga’s analysis of electoral competition makes the case that “the picture is much rosier” than FairVote characterizes in calling one of our reports “dubious democracy.” But we stand firmly by our position. In this first post we examine the presidential elections and show that that levels of electoral competition in states are far from healthy. Without rose-tinted glasses, this conclusion is inescapable.

The first time I got to vote, it was on New Zealand’s 2011 Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) referendum. It was exciting to be able to have a voice on how our electoral system works in my first democratic experience.