The 2016 primary marked the third election cycle of statewide races when California employed the “Top Two” method, in which candidates from all parties for State Assembly, State Senate, US House, and this year, Barbara Boxer’s open US Senate seat, appeared on the same ballot. FairVote will be providing more extensive analysis of this unique system’s outcomes in the coming weeks, but we wanted to share a few key findings now.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have effectively wrapped up their nomination contests. A rundown of the votes it took to do so is revealing -- each has won the votes of about one in 20 eligible voters so far.

The campaigns for Ted Cruz and John Kasich are collaborating in a bid to block Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination: Kasich won't campaign in Indiana, while Cruz will stand down in New Mexico and Oregon. But there's good reason to believe the deal with break down. Ranked choice voting would avoid the need for such deals simply by allowing voters to indicate backup choices.

FairVote has updated its online popular vote spreadsheet for 2016 presidential primaries in the wake of the New York primary. Observations include: New York State GOP turnout is low; Ben Carson's votes won't count; Clinton widens lead over Sanders; and Trump has less than 38% of all votes cast.

We've updated our popular vote totals for all the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination contests in 2016. The overall story remains the same - strong popular vote leads for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and more than 640,000 votes cast for candidates after they withdrew - but there are lessons to learn from breaking out vote totals in caucuses and primaries,

Ohio governor John Kasich spoke in favor of independent redistricting this week. With Ohio Republican legislative leaders cool to the idea, Kasich should talk with Maryland governor Larry Hogan, who yesterday expressed interest in negotiating an interstate compact with other states in order to create a plan that is both fair overall and fair to all voters.

I wanted to highlight a new proposal: the “ Public Primary.” First proposed to us last year by Chad Peace of the Independent Voter Project as an “all independent primary,” the idea has taken more shape in the succeeding months. Chad now calls it a Public Primary, as do we.

Not a single Republican presidential primary this year has been won with more than half the votes cast. Recently both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have suggested John Kasich should leave the Republican race because he's getting votes that otherwise would go to them. A new national poll asking head-to-head comparisons shows that Cruz is right -- Trump's 10% lead shrinks to just 2% without Kasich.

FairVote was a pioneer in calling for automatic voter registration as a key step toward a goal of ensuring every eligible voter is registered and no ineligible voter is registered. In the wake of big wins in California and Oregon, we can now add West Virginia to the list -- all the more encouraging given that it has a Democratic governor and Republican legislature.

Federal judge Richard W. Story has struck down Georgia's petition requirement for independent and unqualified parties. As explained by Richard Winger, the ruling holds the promise to be a huge breakthrough for fair ballot access.