If you voted in the primary earlier this month, did you notice anything striking on your ballot? Any races with just one name listed? Any incumbent candidates that nobody ran against?

Most of you did, because most of our primary races are uncompetitive. This year, for instance, all 200 seats in the Massachusetts Legislature are on the ballot, but just 25 incumbents, 14 percent of those running for reelection, faced primary challengers. That number only increases to about a quarter when looking at the share of lawmakers who face challengers in the upcoming general election in November.

That’s just the most recent data point in a long, disappointing trend. Since 2014, 52 percent of Massachusetts elections have had no real contest at all. No primary opponent, no general election opponent, nothing. In 2024, that number climbed to 62 percent. All told, 99 percent of our incumbents ultimately keep their seats, not because they’ve necessarily earned every vote, but because most have never actually had to ask for one. They are able to easily win reelection by default in uncompetitive, low-turnout races.

I’ve spent my career fighting for a political system that actually listens to the people it’s supposed to serve, so that’s a tough pill to swallow. Our political system, the way it is structured and designed today, tells people that their vote is merely a formality. It tells them that the real decision was made somewhere else, by someone else, before they ever opened their ballot envelope or walked into the voting booth. And it lands the hardest on communities that the NAACP exists to serve: working people, communities of color, and neighborhoods that have learned, election after election, that showing up doesn’t change who shows up for them. We can, and must, do better than this.

That’s why the New England Area Conference of the NAACP supports Question 3 on the November ballot: All-party primaries in Massachusetts. If the ballot question is approved, every candidate for a given office, Democrat, Republican, independent, Working Families and other political designations, would appear together on one primary ballot, where any voter can vote for any candidate, regardless of party. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to November. That’s it.

With inherently more competition, elected officials are better incentivized to listen and deliver. This isn’t the “jungle primary” you may have heard a few opponents incorrectly invoke, in my view just to purposely scare and mislead voters. That term refers specifically to Louisiana’s primary model, where a candidate can win a seat outright in the primary, totally bypassing the general election.

All-party primaries are a top-two system that always sends two candidates to the general election, so voters get the final say. And it isn’t untested or radical: It’s how cities and towns across Massachusetts, including Boston, elect their mayors and other municipal officials. We’re extending what already works at the local level to the state level offices that also shape policy surrounding education, infrastructure, health care and affordability.

The Massachusetts reform also includes two safeguards you won’t find in other states: Political parties can place their endorsements right on the ballot, providing a high-information ballot for voters, and a write-in option is preserved for the general election.

The reform also changes how candidates for statewide and federal office reach the ballot.

Today, qualified candidates may be blocked from the ballot by party conventions that require support from a minimum share of those attending, meaning that party delegates can decide which candidates voters end up seeing on their ballot. Under all-party primaries, that step no longer determines ballot access. Conventions instead would be used for important organizing and, crucially, endorsements that could then be listed on the resulting high-information ballots of this reform.

Under all-party primaries, every qualified candidate goes straight to the ballot, where voters get to choose who they want to advance to the general election. Voters get a fuller field of choices, and candidates have to compete for support instead of assuming it.

That assumption, along with restricted, low-turnout primaries are how small, motivated factions keep control. Here’s the mechanism, plainly: In a low-turnout primary, incumbents or their challengers don’t need to win over most voters. They just need to turn out a small slice who will show up for them, vote their way and let everyone else stay home.

Massachusetts already has the fewest contested elections in the country. That’s not an accident of civic apathy, but a strategy, and it works the same way, whether it’s an old-guard party structure protecting an incumbent or a special interest group trying to exert influence. Keep the electorate small and predictable, and you can control the outcomes without ever building broad support.

We’ve seen how that works nationally. Regular people don’t see the positive effects of government or politics in their lives. It’s how Trump was elected nationally. And it’s how Massachusetts got the least productive, least transparent legislature in the country, with the fewest challengers of any state.

Open up the primaries to every voter, every qualified candidate, and we get more competition, higher turnout, and better results. We get strong coalitions with the resiliency required to overcome the many challenges we’re facing. A more participatory and representative system is what helps us build the power required to truly meet the moment.

The NAACP built its power by organizing, showing up, communicating to everyone and making the case, generation after generation. This includes communicating with people who might not already agree with us, or who are unaware of our work. That’s how you build political power. That’s how you build real coalitions that last through the good, the bad and the ugly. You build a tradition of persuading people, and not being afraid of doing so.

All-party primaries ask the same thing of every candidate and every party: Earn the votes. Don’t count on a low-turnout primary to do the work for you. Go to every neighborhood, make the case and win support from people who might not have already been on your list. If our ideas are as strong as we say they are, that’s not a threat, but an opportunity to build actual political will and gain the very real policy results that come from it.

Voters deserve straight answers, real choices and clear vision from their candidates. We need elected officials who listen and deliver. Competitive elections help ensure they do. Competitive elections strengthen our democracy.

In November, voters have the chance to stop settling for one-name races and no results to show for it by voting yes on Question 3.

Tanisha Sullivan is president of the NAACP New England Area Conference.