All across the Unit­ed States, can­di­dates for Sen­ate, Con­gress and state offices are win­ning pri­maries to rep­re­sent their par­ties on the Novem­ber bal­lot. In every case, they are one-per­son, one-vote con­tests where the can­di­date with the most votes wins.

The parties should pick nominees for president the way they nominate everyone else: with a final binding nomination contest held on the same day. A party might make its final selection of a nominee in separate state contests all held on one day, but far better would be to hold a national primary and award the nomination on the basis of one-person, one-vote.

But that’s not how we nom­i­nate can­di­dates for the office that mat­ters most to Amer­i­cans: the pres­i­den­cy. The rules that gov­ern the par­ties’ selec­tion process cur­rent­ly aren’t doing them any favors. The GOP’s con­tro­ver­sial pre­sump­tive nom­i­nee has yet to earn the sup­port of its last two pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nees and its two liv­ing for­mer pres­i­dents. Democ­rats have new divi­sions and grow­ing con­cerns about their like­ly nominee’s via­bil­i­ty in November.

Ben­e­fit­ting from a frac­tured oppo­si­tion, Don­ald Trump cleared the Repub­li­can field before many states even vot­ed — and had won only 40 per­cent of vote, rep­re­sent­ing a mere 4.7 per­cent of the nation’s eli­gi­ble vot­ers. Hillary Clin­ton effec­tive­ly locked up the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion with strong results on Super Tues­day and her over­whelm­ing advan­tage in super del­e­gates who can ignore their states’ pop­u­lar vote — leav­ing Bernie Sanders sup­port­ers to fume as his increas­ing suc­cess had no chance to change the outcome.

It’s time for a change that is wide­ly pop­u­lar among vot­ers. The par­ties should pick nom­i­nees for pres­i­dent the way they nom­i­nate every­one else: with a final bind­ing nom­i­na­tion con­test held on the same day. A par­ty might make its final selec­tion of a nom­i­nee in sep­a­rate state con­tests all held on one day, but bet­ter would be to hold a nation­al pri­ma­ry and award the nom­i­na­tion on the basis of one-per­son, one-vote.

Mak­ing a nation­al pri­ma­ry work is not as sim­ple as it might sound. That’s because the cur­rent rules have some val­ue. They give less well-known can­di­dates a chance to build sup­port with­out huge upfront cam­paign cash and name recog­ni­tion. They require fron­trun­ners to with­stand the height­ened scruti­ny that comes with ear­ly suc­cess. The best approach, then, is to keep state-by-state con­tests, but have them only deter­mine which can­di­dates advance to the nation­al primary.

This year, Clin­ton and Sanders would have known all along they were head­ing toward a sin­gle final pri­ma­ry — some­thing that would have removed all the sour­ness asso­ci­at­ed with the race being effec­tive­ly over ear­ly on and giv­ing the par­ty a chance to con­firm who it want­ed as a nom­i­nee. The entire tenor of the Repub­li­can cam­paign would have changed as well. Trump would have need­ed a true major­i­ty, like­ly still fac­ing his party’s strongest candidates.

How it works

STEP ONE: State con­tests to choose del­e­gates and win­now the field.

A nation­al pri­ma­ry would always decide the nom­i­nee, but state con­tests would still mat­ter — just not as much. To allow long­shots to become fron­trun­ners and fron­trun­ners to be test­ed, the par­ties should hold their state con­tests with a fair­er sched­ule than today. A three-month ver­sion of the ​“Amer­i­can Plan” makes par­tic­u­lar sense, giv­en how well it bal­ances the val­ue of a rotat­ing group of small­er pop­u­la­tion states going first with giv­ing all states a mean­ing­ful role.

Some might com­plain about the length of the nom­i­na­tion process, but the Unit­ed States is a large nation, with more than a hun­dred mil­lion vot­ers. Cam­paign­ing in every state takes time, and every effort to woo vot­ers would be part of the ulti­mate goal of win­ning the final primary.

State con­tests might be pri­maries, but also could include cau­cus­es, which par­ties can orga­nize and pay for on their own. It’s easy to crit­i­cize cau­cus­es for low­er turnout and dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion, but done well, they can also allow par­tic­i­pants to debate issues and get to know one anoth­er. And with this plan, they would nev­er be a sub­sti­tute for the final bind­ing con­test: a nation­al pri­ma­ry to pick the nominee.

Whether hold­ing cau­cus­es or pri­maries in states, par­ties would be wise to build into all con­tests two key rules. First, they should award del­e­gates on the basis of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion: that means 51% of vot­ers will elect a major­i­ty of del­e­gates rather than all of them, and 20% of vot­ers will elect a fair share. Pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion is already required in all Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­tests and many Repub­li­can ones, and hav­ing a fair reflec­tion vot­ers helps make con­ven­tion del­e­gates and the field for the nation­al pri­ma­ry more representative.

Sec­ond, they should use ranked choice vot­ing (RCV, also known as IRV, ​“instant runoff vot­ing”). RCV allows vot­ers to indi­cate their first choice and then rank their back­up choic­es. In each round of count­ing, the low­est vote-get­ter is elim­i­nat­ed and their votes shift to their sup­port­ers’ sec­ond choice. The instant run-offs con­tin­ue until the win­ner secures a major­i­ty of the vote. In a pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry, the RCV count would stop when all remain­ing can­di­dates have enough votes to earn their fair share of del­e­gates, then con­tin­ue to see who real­ly should earn­ing brag­ging rights for win­ning the state with a majority.

Used in sev­er­al major cities and on the statewide bal­lot in Maine this year, RCV makes par­tic­u­lar sense in pres­i­den­tial pri­maries. Their fields are often large and frac­tured, but the media treats every win the same, whether it is with 60 per­cent or 30 per­cent. This year, for instance, FairVote’s polling and analy­ses this year shows that Trump ben­e­fit­ed great­ly from a divid­ed opposition.

It also would have giv­en a back­up choice to the more than 700,000 Repub­li­can vot­ers who vot­ed ear­ly and had their bal­lot count for a can­di­date who with­drew by the time of their pri­ma­ry — includ­ing near­ly one in five in Ari­zona, far more than were vic­tim­ized by long lines at the polls. With RCV bal­lots, vot­ers would nev­er be pun­ished for vot­ing earl.

STEP TWO: A nation­al pri­ma­ry day among top con­tenders to choose the nom­i­nee.

After the state con­tests win­now the field, that party’s back­ers would pick their nom­i­nee in a sin­gle day of con­tests among the final­ists. While a par­ty might choose to let each state hold its own con­tests under its own rules, it would do well to embrace a full-fledged nation­al pri­ma­ry, with every vot­er in every state and ter­ri­to­ry cast­ing an equal vote.

To reach the nation­al pri­ma­ry bal­lot, can­di­dates would need to win at least 20 per­cent of del­e­gates in the state con­tests. That thresh­old keeps a focus on the strongest can­di­dates, but leaves room for diverse per­spec­tives and can­di­dates who decid­ed to enter the con­test after ear­ly fron­trun­ners showed weak­ness. Use of ranked choice vot­ing would uphold major­i­ty rules if three or more can­di­dates reached a party’s nation­al pri­ma­ry ballot.

June would be a sen­si­ble month for the pri­ma­ry. That’s after the spring sea­son of state con­tests, but before the dog days of sum­mer and gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. States would be wise to hold their con­gres­sion­al and state office pri­maries on the nation­al pri­ma­ry day, with all their cur­rent pri­ma­ry rules in place. That would sure­ly boost con­gres­sion­al pri­ma­ry par­tic­i­pa­tion Geor­gia just held stand-alone con­gres­sion­al pri­maries, with only 20 per­cent turnout, less than half of its pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry turnout in March.

Par­ties would want to bind del­e­gates to the nation­al pri­ma­ry out­come or risk an uproar. As was the his­toric prac­tice, how­ev­er, par­ties might choose to give con­ven­tion del­e­gates more pow­er over the selec­tion of the nominee’s vice-pres­i­dent– — ecog­niz­ing the vice-president’s chance to become pres­i­dent and define the par­ty in the future.

How it could happen

A nation­al pri­ma­ry ulti­mate­ly requires action by three major actors: the par­ties, state gov­ern­ments and Con­gress. Any one of them could also be a cat­a­lyst for the change.

The par­ties should take the lead at this year’s con­ven­tions — either putting for­ward a plan or set­ting up a spe­cial com­mit­tee to do so, like the McGov­ern-Fras­er and Hunt Com­mis­sions, which reformed Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nat­ing prac­tices after pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in 1968 and 1980 respec­tive­ly. This year’s lead­ing con­tenders could trig­ger change if join­ing to call for reform.

Con­gress has a big role to play. It should offer to fund states for admin­is­ter­ing pri­maries and upgrad­ing their vot­ing equip­ment if agree­ing to par­tic­i­pate in a nation­al pri­ma­ry. A coor­di­nat­ed pri­ma­ry among states would boost turnout in con­gres­sion­al pri­maries alone, as per­sua­sive­ly argued by John Forti­er of the Bipar­ti­san Pol­i­cy Center.

States and ter­ri­to­ries would then need to get on board, but with fund­ing from Con­gress, they’d have every rea­son to act — and once a crit­i­cal mass of states did so, the rest would want to get in line.

Answer­ing concerns

Amer­i­cans can be cau­tious when it comes to upgrad­ing elec­toral rules — a cau­tion that has allowed oth­er nations to embrace changes that often pro­vide more sub­stan­tive cam­paigns, high­er par­tic­i­pa­tion, fair­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion and bet­ter gov­er­nance. But the case for change is over­whelm­ing, even if par­ti­sans will sure to cal­cu­late what this might mean for them and weigh poten­tial unin­tend­ed consequences,

As a start, par­ties could quit debat­ing and tin­ker­ing with nom­i­na­tion rules in a way that always seems bet­ter for fix­ing the last cycle’s prob­lems rather than antic­i­pat­ing future ones. Instead, they could put their trust in one-per­son, one-vote, and always have a nom­i­nee who has cam­paigned and built sup­port in every state and ulti­mate­ly won a nation­al major­i­ty. If only one par­ty pursed a nation­al pri­ma­ry, its even­tu­al nom­i­nee would dom­i­nate the media — and get a big leg up for the gen­er­al election.

Some might wor­ry that if only one par­ty held a nation­al pri­ma­ry, the oth­er might try to game the vote. But such shenani­gans are hard to pull off, and are even less like­ly if doing so would keep them from par­tic­i­pat­ing in their party’s state and con­gres­sion­al pri­maries being held on the same day.

States and ter­ri­to­ries have dif­fer­ent rules for elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion and vot­er eli­gi­bil­i­ty, but we already accept such dif­fer­ences — and it still would be fair­er and more rep­re­sen­ta­tive than the sta­tus quo. Fur­ther­more, when more than 80 per­cent of the U.S. House vot­ed in 1969 to estab­lish direct elec­tion of the pres­i­dent, the pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment did not require uni­form vot­ing rules and qual­i­fi­ca­tions. They also are not required as part of the Nation­al Pop­u­lar Vote inter­state com­pact, which keeps advanc­ing in states toward the goal of estab­lish­ing a nation­al pop­u­lar vote for president.

The nation­al pri­ma­ry plan also wouldn’t just serve the major par­ties. Minor par­ties could hold their pri­maries that day as well, and states might even those to hold a ​“pub­lic pri­ma­ry” con­test among inde­pen­dent can­di­dates. With ranked choice vot­ing in place in pri­maries, we could eas­i­ly estab­lish it in Novem­ber, final­ly putting an end to the spoil­er debate and allow­ing debates to be opened to more candidates.

So enough already. Let’s make every vote count, give every vot­er an equal chance and end up with nom­i­nees who tru­ly reflect their party’s major­i­ty. By tak­ing action now, we can have a nation­al pri­ma­ry in place by 2020.