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Originally Posted by Bjeanj
Isn’t that one of the amendments we just voted on?
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What the defeated amendment did was propose a top two open primary system, not ranked voting. If it had passed then the primary for Florida offices, not federal offices, would have been open to all voters and candidates with top two going on to the general election.
Example if 10 people qualified to run for governor then all 10 names would be on the primary ballot with top two going on. The problem with not using ranked voting in this open primary system is that you may not get the most preferred options. Say you have a far right wing candidate, hated by more mainstream GOP but adored by the Proud Boys and neo fascists with support of 15% of the electorate and hated by the other 85%. And you have a member of antifa on the far left, hated by more mainstream Dems but adored by 15% of the electorate. And the other 8 candidates split the 70% of the remaining voters each getting about 9% of the primary vote.
The two candidates in the general election are now the most extreme. If you had rank choice voting in the primary then neither of the extremists would make the final ballot.
This is why Alaska went to a top four from the primary to lessen the chance of fringe candidates getting through. I'd support a top four with ranked voting primary followed by a ranked voting general election.