Unified primary

Unlike a blanket primary, the unified primary uses approval voting in the first round, in which voters may express support for any number of favored candidates, which is intended to eliminate vote splitting and spoilers (since voters can support a partisan favorite and a moderate).

The city of St. Louis has been using the unified primary since their mayoral election held in March 2021, having survived two repeal attempts.

[23][24] On election day, the initiative was successfully passed with 68% of the vote, thus becoming the first United States city and jurisdiction to adopt it.

[33] In February 2024, Ben Baker introduced legislation to ban approval and ranked-choice voting state-wide.

[36] The use of approval voting on an open field of all candidates for partisan office as a replacement for current party-nominated primary systems was first publicly proposed in November 2011[37] by Mark and Jon Frohnmayer in the form of a draft ballot initiative.

The text of the failed Oregon Ballot Measure 65 (2008), which would have instituted a top-two primary system, served as the foundation for the draft, which was then modified to allow voters to select as many candidates as favored for each office.

[38] A formal petition drive to institute the Unified Primary system in Oregon began in October 2013.

[39] Petitioners completed the sponsorship phase of the initiative process by collecting more than 1,000 verified signatures from registered voters to advance the measure toward the November, 2014 ballot.

In June, volunteers for Seattle Approves had gathered the 26,000 signatures for Initiative 134 to qualify for the November ballot.

[46][47] The city council then had the option to adopt the initiative immediately as an ordinance, put it on the ballot for voters to approve, or reject it and substitute it with a similar measure.