As we move closer to Election Day, most Americans are angry, exhausted and dissatisfied with the current state of our politics. Only 4 percent of survey respondents said the political system was working extremely well or even very well. Sixteen percent said they trusted the federal government always or most of the time, a historical low going back nearly 70 years. Trust in Congress is near record lows.

A silver lining is that eras of widespread dissatisfaction are often eras of major political reform. And while nearly all attention is fixated on the presidential race, Americans in a number of states will also be voting on some of the most significant sets of political reforms in decades. Taken together, these ballot measures — in red, blue and purple states — constitute a major referendum on whether we can reduce political extremism through institutional change.

These proposals are intended to make the political system more responsive to the preferences of a majority of voters, rather than continue a system that has become easy prey for factional minorities.

The major reform, on the ballot in six states and Washington, D.C., would do away with traditional party primaries. Primaries have become a significant force in driving politics to the extremes and making governing more difficult. Turnout in midterm primaries is notoriously low — as low as about 14 percent of eligible voters in 2014, and rarely above 20 percent in the last decade (reaching 21 percent in 2022). Moreover, studies show that primary voters tend to be unrepresentative of general-election voters. They are older, wealthier and whiter. There is more debate over whether primary voters are more ideologically extreme; the most recent analyses of the past three midterms conclude that they are.

More important, politicians certainly believe primary voters are more extreme, and those in office behave accordingly. The 2020 book “Rejecting Compromise: Legislators’ Fear of Primary Voters,” based on interviews with dozens of members of Congress and state legislatures, stated that they know “primary voters are much more likely to punish them for compromising than general election voters or donors.”

These low-turnout, unrepresentative primary electorates determine the nominees of each party. In the general election, voters will then have to choose between two candidates who might be favored by only a small faction of voters. In safe seats, there is no incentive for the dominant party’s primary voters to worry that their candidate, even an ideologically extreme figure, might lose in the general election.

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