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Now, welcome to the award-winning Bestofaloft podcast with clips today from Open primaries,

Talk Poverty Radio, D-Code DC, Democracy Now, The David Pakman Show,

Best of Left Activism today with Democracy Awakening, Brave New Films, and Last Week Tonight.

The American people are fed up with partisan politics.

In a recent Gallup poll, Americans named dissatisfaction with government as the number one problem facing the country today.

Americans now believe our government is more of a problem than the economy, education, and terrorism.

To change the way our elected officials work for the American people we must change how they are elected.

We need to start with the first round of voting, the primaries.

Thanks to Jerry Mandering and other factors, the primary election is often the only election that matters.

In many states, less than 5% of the electorate are actually deciding who represents 100% of that district or state.

That means our elected officials are actually chosen by an increasingly tiny, often incredibly partisan slice of the electorate.

Today, 42% of Americans identify themselves as independence.

Most states exclude independent voters from voting in the first round, the primaries.

And in states that do allow them to vote in primaries, they're forced to temporarily join a party that they don't believe in.

A top two nonpartisan primary eliminates party control and favor of a single nonpartisan primary open to all voters and all candidates.

There is no longer a democratic primary and a republican primary.

There is one primary open to all voters and all candidates.

The top two vote getters, regardless of party, then move forward to the general election.

With nonpartisan primaries, everyone gets to vote.

The winners are more accountable because they have to speak to all the voters in order to get elected.

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