This is topic Michigan banned from voting for Dem's Primary in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
 
Well, looks like 10 million people won't have a say in the Democratic elections, the national party has banned our delegates from attending as punishment for the State moving elections earlier than Iowa.

Well...let this be the sounding trumpet for the disassembly and rebuilding of the election process... the current quasi-official manner is arbitrary and bum anyway.

Didn't used to matter back in the day before mass media...

[edit of title to please Jhai]

[ December 03, 2007, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
 

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Posted by Jhai (Member # 5633) on :
 
link

Is there any constitutional or other law that gives citizens the right to decide who the parties will run as their candidates?

Edit: I find the thread title very misleading, since the state isn't banned on voting for president, just on voting on which candidate will be run by one political party.

Edit #2: I just read today about a study done that estimates that the voters in "early primary" states have about 20 times the influence that "late primary" voters have. I'll link to the blog post on the study (which has a link to the study), since the comments are interesting, if not correct.

[ December 01, 2007, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Jhai ]
 

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Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
 
This just shows how undemocratic the so-called Democratic Party really is. Should be fun watching the apocalyptic floor fight at the DEM national convention.
 

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Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
 
Well poo. Broken democracy sucks.

I don't think (my state) Oregon has any plans to try to make our primary votes important(We're May 20, 2008), so I don't think we're at risk of this kind of retaliation, but it still sucks to have no say.

Last time our primaries came around, most of the candidates for the Democratic nomination had already dropped out.

The major parties want this kind of thing to happen, so they can control the elections with targeted spending in just a few states. In a fair system, they wouldn't be able to exercise this level of control over an election that the people are supposed to decide.

I don't know what there is to do about this, but certainly calling for the disassembly and rebuilding of the election system is necessary. If we had an election system that could pass the Condorcet Criterion, then the two major parties couldn't limit the choices like they do. Of course, they'll never push for a fair election system.
 

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Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
Ron -

Republicans have stripped delegates from even more states than the Democrats have, they just let them keep some of them.

Everyone else -

I've ranted about this numerous times before, and just mentioned it on the Congressional News thread, but I'll still say part of my piece: The current system is ridiculously unfair, New Hampshire and Iowa should NOT have a monopoly on the early voting and thus all the attention from the candidates. The other 48 states have problems too, especially Michigan, but also others.

This is crap, and it's futile, because as Carl Levin says, our delegates WILL get their vote at the convention, the nominee will demand it, but it's almost useless considering the campaign ban and the fact that the candidates have mostly all pulled out of the state. It's also stupid to hand Republicans a really, REALLY easy campaign ploy to use in Michigan and Florida when the General comes around.

This pisses me off, but hopefully Michigan's sacrifice will serve as a catalyst to move REAL change in the primary process to the head of the line. The constitution says nothing about parties, because the Founders totally disliked the idea of parties as they are now. But for better or for worse, the parties decide the candidate who will end up as the nominee. The closest a third party candidate has come in more than a century was Teddy Roosevelt, and the impromptu Bull Moose party has a FORMER PRESIDENT as their candidate and still couldn't get nearly enough votes to take the White House. It might not be in the constitution, but pretending that this ISN'T the reality we live in is silly. One of the two nominees WILL be the president, and not allowing a fair democratic election of those nominees goes against the spirit of the country.
 

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Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
The Rehnquist SupremeCourt has already ruled that States must financially support political parties in primary elections:
Any right of voters to select their representatives is superceded by the desire of some for partisanship.
Any State's right to decide the manner in which their elections are conducted is overridden by the desire of some for partisanship.

And let us not be silly, Ron. The state legislators who have pushed their primaries ahead of the original dates of the Iowa caucus and the NewHampshire primary have specificly done so to cause purely partisan mischief during this election cycle.

Same to you, Telperion. It doesn't matter much whether Michigan's votes are tallied at the party conventions.
The effect of the early voting states is upon the media, the donors, and the campaign workers. The candidates who do poorly see media coverage fading, their donor pools drying up, and their campaign workers drifting to other candidates or heading home.
The Michigan primary will have a similar effect regardless of how the party machines decide to treat the results.

[ December 01, 2007, 08:45 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 

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Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
 
Any chance this could be a decision meant to be unfair to finally get enough momentum to change the system everyone knows is corrupt? Cause in my mind, the chances of a major overhaul have increased greatly based on this decision.
 

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Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
 
Frontloading is stupid, but not as stupid as the caucus-primary dates system. A national election should be managed nationally, at least to a point that states don't jockey for more power than they ought to have.
 

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Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Since not having delegates vote at a convention really isn't much of a punishment, I expect more states to move their primary date up until the entire point becomes moot.

I'm wondering if not being bombarded with campaign ads will make a difference in how people vote this year. If people have to do their own research, will they choose candidates on the issues instead of how the PR guy makes them feel? Will fewer people vote if it's less convenient? Could this possibly lead to a better quality candidate being choosen?

The reason we're in this mess may be lame, but the situation is kind of fascinating.
 

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Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
 
*changes thread title*

There ya go Jhai.
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
Thanks for the edit, Telp; the hyperbole was bugging me as well.
 

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Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
 
Lyrhawn,
"Republicans have stripped delegates from even more states than the Democrats have, they just let them keep some of them. "
Do you have a link for this?
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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The Rehnquist SupremeCourt has already ruled that States must financially support political parties in primary elections:

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Lyrhawn,
"Republicans have stripped delegates from even more states than the Democrats have, they just let them keep some of them. "
Do you have a link for this?

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The Republicans have stripped half the delegates from New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, Michigan and Wyoming for scheduling early primaries and caucuses. Republican rules don't allow any states to hold nominating contests before Feb. 5.

The Republicans, however, haven't set any restrictions on campaigning in states that violate party rules. That has some Democrats concerned that they could lose votes in Florida, the fourth largest state, and Michigan, the eighth largest.

Former DNC Chairman Don Fowler, a member of the rules panel, said stripping the delegates from Michigan and Florida _ and prohibiting candidates from campaigning there during the primaries _ will hurt party-building efforts in those states.

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Originally posted by AvidReader:
Since not having delegates vote at a convention really isn't much of a punishment, I expect more states to move their primary date up until the entire point becomes moot.

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Some states are starting to push a measure that would force them to give their Electoral College votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote, making the college itself more or less a moot point. Thus far only one state, I want to say Maryland, has passed such a measure.

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The measure becomes effective as soon as enough other states pass the law to ensure that the national popular vote victor would win the presidency.

It's an interesting (and unsettled) constitutional question as to whether states can actually force electors to vote a particular way.

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I thought states already more or less chose how their electors are apportioned. Most states have it so that the winner of the popular vote in each state gets all the electors, the "winner takes all" approach, but one or two states (New Hampshire?) gives out their electors based on the popular vote, they split them up. So isn't there already a precedent for letting states choose for themselves?

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Originally posted by Dagonee:
SOme examples of faithless electors.

SCOTUS has ruled that states can empower parties to require elector candidates to make a pledge, and presumably can punish violation of the pledge. But it can't compel compliance with the pledge as far as I know.

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Originally posted by fugu13:
Did you read Dag's link, BB? Clearly not entirely, as several electors have voted in a different way.

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Originally posted by fugu13:
The article also deals with the notion that delegates were intended to act independently.

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Originally posted by Qaz:
I don't understand why the Democratic Party is morally required to recognize primaries done in violation of their rules. The rules aren't that hard to follow, either. The state only had to not deliberately decide to flout them.

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Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Because the rules are stupid to begin with.

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I've yet to hear a single argument to support keeping [the Electoral College]

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I don't understand why the Democratic Party is morally required to recognize primaries done in violation of their rules. The rules aren't that hard to follow, either. The state only had to not deliberately decide to flout them.

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I don't understand why we let private organizations dictate voting policy to sovereign states.

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This really is at the core of my frustration.

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This frustrates me.

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Fixed it for you.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Isn't there a recount going on in Venezuela even as we speak?
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
Are they doing a recount? None of the articles I've read have suggested this.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
The middle of Dagonee's links supports splitting state electors. What if the congressional districts go with the popular votes in their distric, and the senators go with the statewide popular winner?

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For example, the Electoral College system keeps serious third parties from becoming anything more than temporary. This, I believe, is a very good thing. Most major countries with multiple parties have had severe problems that have caused them to change their systems to one that encourages only two or three parties. France during the fourth Republic and Israel during the seventies and eighties come to mind as prime examples.

Without the Electoral College, we might see a splintering of the major parties into smaller ones, each trying to get that plurality of the popular vote. These parties may form around ideological, economic, racial, regional, or even religious grounds. The current two-party system forces everyone into one of the two parties. There would be no reason for this if the Electoral College were abandoned.

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This is a very good point. Of course I want there to be a third party of the things I support, but most other people's ideas for third parties stink.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 

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Originally posted by Dagonee:
Are they doing a recount? None of the articles I've read have suggested this.

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Originally posted by mackillian:

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This really is at the core of my frustration.

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This frustrates me.

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Fixed it for you.

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I knew somebody was going to do that.
 

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Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
We're here to help.
 

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Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
 
Can I ask *why* you have early elections and late elections at all? Why does *any* state get to influence the others?! I've been puzzled by this for a while but never got to ask.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
The influence early states have on later state is not through any official means, but rather a function of how Americans approach the primaries. If someone wins the early primaries, people become more likely to vote for them and/or give them money*. Ultimately, this doesn't necessarily make all that much sense, but lots of things people do fit that.

The difference in when states run primaries is due to an archaic system that predated early travel and mass communication. It was set up to allow candidates ample time to visit areas of the country and let the people get to know them and what they stood for.

This has been preserved largely through certain states guarding their priviledges of early voting and the parties' attempts to keep other states in line, but, as you can see, some pretty huge cracks are developing in this.

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* - Just had an impratical idea. What if we allow primaries to run whenever, but required that the results of these primaries be kept secret until all the primaries were over? I know, I know, you'd still have exit polls and that will kill most of the force behind this. Ah well.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I think if they want to keep the party system, they are going to have to do something sensible like allow states to draw for primary dates. Folks who are dead last could have first pick the next round and so forth.

I can see that doing one primary everywhere at once gives unfair advantage to the candidates with the most money (to do mass marketing). And money = win is not really how I think the election should go.

The primary races should be a qualifying process.
 

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
Why don't we just do away with primaries period as they were created by political parties in order to cement their control. This is whimsical thinking on my part but I almost wish we went back to the days where the parties simply met together had 3-4 days of conferences and through political jockeying tickets were formed and the party voted for a ticket then and there. From there both tickets and anybody else running as a third party hit the stumping trail.
 

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Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
 
Thanks for both answers. I think the current system does indeed give too much importance to the early primaries and I'd like to see a change. Luckily I'm not American and don't have to vote there.
 

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 

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Originally posted by Corwin:
Thanks for both answers. I think the current system does indeed give too much importance to the early primaries and I'd like to see a change. Luckily I'm not American and don't have to vote there.

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Unfortunately you have to live with the results of our flawed system of election. Try not to cross us, it makes us uneasy about the way your country runs. You wouldn't want to scare us into fixing your country for you right?
 

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Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
 

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Originally posted by BlackBlade:
You wouldn't want to scare us into fixing your country for you right?

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