Marcela Miranda-Caballero and David Daley’s new piece in the LA Times:

Schiff’s skulduggery was unfortunate but totally rational under the current system. In California’s unusual “jungle” primary, every candidate runs in the same preliminary election, and the top two vote-getters move on to the general election regardless of party affiliation. Schiff seemed certain to claim one of the two spots from the beginning, but he faced a potentially competitive race in the fall against a progressive Democrat such as Porter or Lee.

So Schiff decided to try to choose an easier opponent. California Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1, and the state’s voters haven’t sent a Republican to the Senate in 35 years.,,,

Our politics need not be this underhanded. It would be easy to end this chicanery and ensure that the candidates with the widest and deepest support face off in the fall.

Ranked-choice voting, whose renaissance started in the Bay Area and is quickly spreading across the country, is the best tool for reflecting the wishes of voters in any race with more than two candidates. It allows voters to rank their chosen candidates — first, second, third and so on — and enables an instant runoff: If no one secures a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their votes awarded to their supporters’ next choice, a process repeated until one candidate gets more than 50%. This eliminates spoiler candidates, wasted votes for eliminated candidates, winners with relatively small pluralities, and duplicitous tactics like Schiff’s and Porter’s.

One option is for California to adopt a “final four” model such as the one being used successfully in Alaska. Instead of advancing just two candidates from the primary, the state admits the top four to the general election, which is then decided by ranked choice.

This allows multiple candidates of different ideological stripes within a party to run against one another without splitting the field, which is particularly important in an overwhelmingly blue state like California. It also helps ensure that both major parties have at least one candidate in the general election. That could have allowed Schiff, Garvey, Lee and Porter to all make their cases before a much larger and more representative November electorate.

Voters, meanwhile, would be able to choose their actual favorite from a wide field — along with their second and subsequent choices — without any fear of playing spoiler. The winner would be the candidate with the deepest and broadest support among all California voters. And the election would have a completely different vibe: Instead of ignoring his strongest Democratic opponents, Schiff would have had to compete to be their supporters’ second choice.