With less than a month to go before California holds its primary election, it now looks as if the state's Democrats are going to avoid disaster. That is good news for Democratic voters in the state, who outnumber Republican voters by about 3-to-2. But even the fact that we got so close to disaster is going to spur efforts to reform the state's current primary system.

Primary elections can be designed in a number of different ways. For the past 15 years, California has held what is usually called "top-two jungle primaries." Every candidate for every office from every party all appear on the same primary ballot, all jumbled together. The two candidates who finish in first and second places move on to the general election in November. All other candidates are out of luck, because there isn't even a write-in line on the November ballot.

This system has its benefits, but it also has its flaws -- some of which are pretty major. Reforming the system could involve just minor tweaks to the current system (such as allowing for write-in candidates on the general election ballot), or it could involve completely scrapping what we've got and choosing another system entirely.

The biggest problem with the system has had Democrats quaking in their boots for the past few months. Because while there are multiple Democrats running for the governor's office, there are only two major Republican candidates. If three or more of the Democrats split the vote pretty evenly, it might allow the two Republicans to win the top two spots in the primary. this would mean Democratic voters would just be out of luck in November -- even though they outnumber Republican voters by a 60-40 margin. If the two Republicans each get around 20 percent of the vote and Democrats split fairly evenly between four or even five candidates, the top-two system would lock the party out of the November ballot.

Thankfully, recent polling shows that the likelihood of this happening has lessened. There have been two big developments in the race that have changed things in a major way: Donald Trump endorsed Republican Steve Hilton, and Democrat Xavier Becerra has seen a huge gain in support after Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race. Polling now shows Hilton and Becerra duking it out for first place, with Democrat Tom Steyer in third (in almost all recent polling). Chad Bianco, the other Republican in the race, has fallen back and now appears much less of a threat. So Californians will likely get the choice between Hilton and either Becerra or Steyer in November. That would be a lot better than 60 percent of the electorate not having their own party's candidate to vote for.

One effort to repeal California's primary system has already been launched, and there may be more to come. The first one would take California back to having closed and partisan primaries once again. In the primary election, there would be one ballot for every party. The winner of each party's primary would go on to appear on the November ballot. But only voters registered for each party could vote in that party's primary.

This seems a little drastic. As I said, there are many different ways to hold a primary, and this method has its own flaws. Independent voters would be locked out of the primary system, even though a growing portion of the public is registered as "no party preference."

Holding partisan open primaries would solve this problem, since it would allow any voter -- of any party (or none) -- to request any party's primary ballot when they show up to vote for the primary election. Democrats could vote in the Republican primary and vice-versa, although (of course) voters could only participate in one party's primary (you couldn't vote multiple times, in other words). Independent voters could also request any party's ballot and vote for the candidate of their choice, so nobody is disenfranchised.

Or the open, non-partisan "jungle" primary could be changed to avoid major parties being locked out of the general election. California could adopt the method used in Alaska, which is a top-four jungle primary. This would avoid two enormous problems with the system in place now. The first is the situation Democrats have been worried about in this year's race for governor. If the top four candidates advanced to the general election, that would almost guarantee that at least one Democrat and one Republican would make the cut. The situation California Democrats fear now is one that has come to pass for Republicans in the state already, in other statewide races (when two Democratic candidates have moved on to the general election). It is unfair either way, because this means that a major party's voters are essentially disenfranchised in the general election -- they are left with nobody to vote for. It would be unfair for the 60 percent of voters who vote for Democrats to only have two GOP gubernatorial candidates to vote for in November, but it is just as unfair when 40 percent of the voters can't vote for a Republican.

The other problem a top-four system would solve is the underhanded false-flag tactics that are routinely deployed in California. Some Democratic donors are currently running ads that warn how incredibly conservative and MAGA Hilton is. These are designed for a specific purpose -- to boost Hilton's chances among Republican voters. That way, (1) the chances of Bianco coming in second are lessened (as Hilton gains GOP support), and (2) whichever Democrat makes it to November can run against a Republican rather than a Democrat -- which makes it a much easier race for the Democrat to win. Moving to a top-four system would mean this kind of backhanded interference would be almost impossible -- because while it can indeed work in top-two races (several Democratic politicians have already successfully used this sneaky cross-party interference method in previous elections), it would be virtually impossible for such manipulation to work if four candidates make it to the general election instead of just two.

In an ideal world, California voters would be presented with multiple reform ballot measures all at once. These could cover the whole gamut of possible reforms -- closed primaries versus open primaries, jungle primaries versus partisan primaries, and even just minor tweaks like adding a write-in line to the November ballot. If the voters are offered a number of different choices, then (the way the initiative process works in the state) out of all of the ones that get at least a majority (50 percent plus one vote) the one with the most votes would be enacted and the others would fail.

That seems reasonable to me. So I hope that the effort to reform California's primary system does not end with a single ballot initiative being proposed. I hope other reform efforts also try to get their ideas on the ballot as well. I'm not even sure which one I would want to win -- I'd have to see the details of each before making up my mind. But I think California voters should be presented with a wide range of choices, because the system we have now pretty obviously needs some sort of reform.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant