Abstract — This brief explains how the United States’ political primary structure creates radical politicians through party primaries, which allow a marginal faction of extreme voters to choose a candidate for the general election. This leads to intense polarization as each party selects a candidate most suited to their interests, killing American centrism. Our voting problems stem from the root, party primaries that create polarized candidates, heavily dividing the nation and pushing out centrists. Solving increasing polarization requires a fundamental shift in how the United States carries out its elections by embracing alternative primary voting methods. This brief will analyze two solutions to our political division, general primaries and ranked-choice voting.

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