When Your Vote Doesn’t Matter, Try Switching Ballots

Pundits and voters of all stripes lament just how extreme, polarized, and ideological American politics has become. But such grievances rarely come with advice for how ordinary people can address this problem, other than by voting for their preferred political party’s candidates in general elections. Even that advice isn’t very helpful: Voters in many parts of the country do not have the chance to participate in close electoral contests.

Yet Democrats in Alabama and Republicans in New York, say, still have the power to secure better representation in Congress andstrike a blow against political polarization. In places where electoral competition is lacking, primary elections by and large decide political outcomes. Voters in those places are accustomed to participating in their own party’s