posted
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 ]
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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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.
posted
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.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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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.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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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.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
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.
posted
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.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
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.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
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.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
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?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:The Rehnquist SupremeCourt has already ruled that States must financially support political parties in primary elections:
I'm not sure why I care, given the source, but could you link the case?
quote: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?
quote: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.
quote: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.
Doesn't having your delegates not allowed to vote at the convention make the primary moot? The whole point of the primary is to determine who your delegates should vote for at the convention. The primaries don't select the candidates, the convention does.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
The idea is to get as many states to do it as possible so the DNC and RNC would have no choice but to reform the system or outlaw half the country, at which point the I assume the delegates themselves would protest.
Right now everyone appeases the early states, and they can because Florida and Michigan together still aren't quite powerful enough to force a major change. But if say a dozen states get on board, then the primary starts to look stupid, and the parties will have to stop and reevaluate the system in a way that is far more equitable to every state.
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.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: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.
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.
There are also interesting state sovereignty issues that would have to be worked out. Some states won't (or used to not - this might have changed) conduct recounts or even finish counting absentee ballots when it's clear that the electoral slate for that state wouldn't be changed. This would have to change before the Maryland system could go nationwide.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: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.
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?
Colorado had a measure in 2004 that was narrowly defeated that would have split up their votes, and I believe just such a measure is gaining traction in California that would have serious reprecussions for national presidential elections.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: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?
But it's not clear that they can enforce those restrictions against individual electors who violate them.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
"Maine and Nebraska choose Presidential Electors using what is termed the Maine Method, which makes it possible for the voters to choose Electors of different political parties and split the electoral vote of these two states."
posted
Ah! Maine, I knew the first one was in the Northeast.
Dag, has the situation arisen yet? Has an elector violated the state's choice of candidate and been taken to court over it?
Frankly I side with the electors, I don't think the state has the power. And I think it's a sign of how the whole system is outdated and stupid.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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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.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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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.
You are correct, but the punishments in of themselves are enough to keep a delegate honest to the party.
Winner takes all basically insures a two party system. I'm still thinking about whether its advantageous for states to award votes based on districts. On the downside (for Republicans) the Democrats could probably get an electoral vote from Utah, on the up side Republicans would still get quite a few electoral votes from California, which Democrats basically assume they are going to get.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Did you read Dag's link, BB? Clearly not entirely, as several electors have voted in a different way.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Did you read Dag's link, BB? Clearly not entirely, as several electors have voted in a different way.
Yes I did read it. A handful of isolated incidents does not persuade me that delegates are free to act in the capacity the founding fathers intended. Constitutionally parties are perfectly within their rights to corrupt the system as they have. Ethically speaking, the political parties and their primary system almost completely negated the point of the electoral college.
I think it's wrong the delegates should have to commit verbally or in writing to either party in order to be selected.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: The article also deals with the notion that delegates were intended to act independently.
They are still free to act if they so chose. The whole point of an electoral college is to place a buffer between the people and the president. It also prevented a situation where 13 colonies without any means of communication would simply elect regional leaders and hence large states would decide the presidency every time. Also an instance of an elector pledging and voting differently followed by an unattributed quote still does little to sway my opinion.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
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.
Posts: 544 | Registered: Mar 2007
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posted
There were some constitutional restrictions on who a delegate could vote for, but some of those have been altered over time as the electoral college was refined. However the founding fathers intended for the system to be used, it isn't that way anymore, and legally even it isn't how it was originally penned.
If we broke into a system where each state apportioned their delegates as votes came in, by district, I think you'd see every state split their delegates at least partially. California would mean a big break for Republicans, but Democrats would get a lot of little votes from every state. Look at the states Republicans narrowly won, Democrats would get half the votes from each of them. It'd likely balance out, but I'd have to actually have all the numbers in front of me to be perfectly sure.
The whole point of the electoral college, as I've said elsewhere, was for an uneducated electorate to still make intelligent choices, via a representative. Often you weren't choosing a random guy who seemed smart, so much as an elector who had a guy he wanted to vote for who told you why you should vote for him, so in a sense there was always a pledge. And also for the reasons of distance/communication. The system was later changed to make it so the second vote had to be for an out of state candidate so favorite sons from big states wouldn't always win. But even that is another reason to show why it's so outdated. I've yet to hear a single argument to support keeping it, let alone one that trumps all the reasons to do away with it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: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.
Because the rules are stupid to begin with.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: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.
I don't understand why we let private organizations dictate voting policy to sovereign states.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Or why we let sovereign states dictate rules to private organizations?
I think its pretty clear the primary system is messed up. In the short term it would be nice to completely divorce primaries from special privileges; they'd still be held, but by the parties, without any official sanction.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:I don't understand why we let private organizations dictate voting policy to sovereign states.
I don't know why I fail to say things this succinctly. This really is at the core of my frustration.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
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?
quote: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.
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. Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Are they doing a recount? None of the articles I've read have suggested this.
I jumped to a conclusion from "too close to call". Sorry. It's not even a presidential election, I come to find out, though it was a very important election involving amendments such as abolishing term limitations for the president.
posted
Thanks for the links Dag, now I've seen the arguments, though I'm still convinced they aren't nearly good enough.
Other than a lot of misinformation on the history of the electoral college and supposed benefits it provides, it seems the biggest argument it is really making is we need to upgrade how we literally vote, that is, the voting machines themselves, because they are apparently byzantine, and something has to be done to make voting easy for 300 million people so every vote is fairly counted, and I'm not convinced that the arguments for the electoral college even negate the problems with it.
Regardless, it should be abolished and replaced with a system that is based on the popular vote.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Yeah, the necessity of the electoral college seems to come down to a basic skepticism that voting can ever really be fair.
But it does keep the outcome a little closer to the source. That is why I think the party split should go by district and not by state.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
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.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
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.
---
* - 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.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
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.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
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.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
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. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote: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.
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? Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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