To the Editor:

David Leonhardt’s column points out certain aspects of the primary system that make no sense and resulted in Donald Trump’s nomination. But the solutions he suggests are complex and impractical. The core of the problem with the primary system is the low level of turnout. This results in a small minority, usually the most extreme of each party, having disproportionate influence.

Perhaps ranked-choice voting would help. Absent that, I suggest that primaries should be governed by the quorum requirement common in many government bodies in order for the results to be recognized. Even a quorum requirement of 30 percent or 40 percent of eligible voters participating would be a vast improvement.

Facilitating early voting, absentee voting and keeping the polls open for longer periods, including weekends, would make the achievement of a quorum more easily attainable and would make the results more representative.

Martin Nussbaum

New York

To the Editor:

David Leonhardt is right to criticize the current primary system for selection of candidates, but partisanship itself is the problem.

I envision an open primary system, in which all voters can vote for candidates of any party. This would orient the candidates to the broad center of the electorate, rather than to the activist fringes of each party. The field would be winnowed in a series of nationwide primaries, so that no states are favored or ignored. In each round, candidates would need to receive a higher percentage of the vote to proceed to the next round, ending with two candidates for the general election.