1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am a California voter in your district, and I’m writing to urge you to (1) move our state toward **ranked choice voting (RCV)** for statewide and legislative elections, and (2) as an immediate safeguard under the current top-two system, **allow certified write-in candidates in November elections**. Our current top-two “jungle primary” can produce outcomes that don’t reflect the will of the majority—for example, when a crowded field on one side of the spectrum splits the vote, while a smaller number of candidates on the other side advance. Ranked choice voting would directly address this problem by: 1. **Ensuring majority support.** RCV guarantees that winners have broad backing, not just a narrow plurality that benefits from vote-splitting. 2. **Reducing perverse lockout scenarios.** Voters can rank candidates from the same party or with similar views without worrying about “spoiling” the race, making it much less likely that a small, unified minority can dominate a fragmented majority. 3. **Encouraging more constructive campaigns.** Candidates have incentives to seek second- and third-choice support, which tends to reward coalition-building and reduces purely negative campaigning. I encourage you to support legislation and, if needed, a constitutional amendment to enable RCV for statewide and legislative offices—whether as a phased pilot or full implementation. Until that reform is in place, I also urge you to support a narrower, near-term fix: **allowing certified write-in candidates in November under the top-two system, with an urgency clause so it can apply in 2026.** More than 40 states already allow some form of write-in candidacy, and California already uses write-ins in other elections. Adding this option in November would be a modest but important “insurance policy” to preserve voter choice if top-two produces only extreme or unrepresentative options on the final ballot. Taken together, ranked choice voting as the long-term goal and write-ins as an immediate safeguard would strengthen legitimacy, protect majority rule, and give Californians more meaningful choices at the ballot box. Thank you for your service and for considering these reforms to make our elections more fair and representative.