There are many more candidates from the different Major and Minor (American Independent, Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom) parties running for the different position, but I had hoped there would be more independent candidates.
The Congressional 53 seats has only 25 independent candidates.
The State Senate 20 seats has only 1 independent candidate.
The State Assembly 80 seats has only 9 independent candidates.
The future of this type of primary will require a detail review of the results to determine if it is the type of Structual Political Reform we are looking for.
But Arizona is not waiting for the results.
Independents were a driving force in bringing non-partisan primaries to California.
Dr. Ted Downing is a former State Representative from Tucson. He became an independent in 2009, joined the IndependentVoting.org network in 2010, and is a founding member of the Open Government Open Elections Coalition that is working to place a "Top Two" referendum on the ballot this November. Over the last several months, Ted has worked with grassroots independent leaders around the state to gather thousands of petition signatures. Its not easy to place a referendum on the ballot in Arizona, 259,000 valid signatures are required.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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50 minor party members have run for office in top-two primaries, in races in which at least one major party person was also running. In all 50 cases, the minor party member did not place first or second and was not permitted to run in November or to campaign in November.
Independent candidates in Washington have also been hurt by top-two. Washington state has used that system for 4 years. In races in which there was at least one Democrat and one Republican also running, no independent candidate has ever placed first or second in those kind of races, and therefore no independent has been permitted to run in November in those kind of races.
Top-two systems entrench incumbents. Out of the last 160 congressional elections in states using top two, only one incumbent was ever defeated for re-election (except in 2 instances when incumbents had to run against each other due to redistricting).
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