Califiornia's New Anti-Democratic Electoral System

When I received my ballot for the 2014 California General Election, I immediately realized how undemocratic it was and how I and many others have been disenfranchised. At the top of the ballot, where statewide offices appear, there were only two candidates for each office, Democrats and Republicans. Since I do not vote for Democrats and Republicans, I left the top of the ballot blank. I was deprived of the right to vote for candidates I agree with and support in the general election. In the past, primaries chose candidates for parties and then all qualifying parties (parties needed a minimum percentage of the vote in previous elections) had a candidate on the ballot in the general election. Now, however, all voters can vote for any candidate in the primary and only the top two votegetters appear on the ballot in the general election. General elections are where most people vote. I'm not sure whether I support letting all voters vote for any candidate in the primary election, but limiting the general election to two candidates turns out to stifle democracy and make it very, very difficult to build third parties. I hope there are many people like me who leave the top of the ballot blank. Those votes should be counted as a "none of the above" vote and should prevent either candidate from getting a majority if there are enough of them. That will underscore the bankruptcy of the current system. There are many ways in which democracy is undermined in the USA: voter IDs, spurious voter challenges, millions of votes stolen by manipulating voting machines, unlimited campaign spending including from corporations, etc. But this particular means of voting is a blatant move to take away choices from voters. We should be able to vote for candidates we support in general elections, and currently, we can't.