Half Of Americans Think Presidential Nominating System 'Rigged' (huffingtonpost.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Huffington Post: More than half of American voters believe that the system U.S. political parties use to pick their candidates for the White House is "rigged" and more than two-thirds want to see the process changed. The results echo complaints from Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders that the system is stacked against them in favor of candidates with close ties to their parties -- a critique that has triggered a nationwide debate over whether the process is fair. The United States is one of just a handful of countries that gives regular voters any say in who should make it onto the presidential ballot. But the state-by-state system of primaries, caucuses and conventions is complex. The contests historically were always party events, and while the popular vote has grown in influence since the mid-20th century, the parties still have considerable sway. Just the other day, a poll was conducted by Harvard University showing a majority of young people do not support capitalism. Are the times they are a changin' or are people starting to wake up?

Comments

Any powers granted are properties

[bretts]

The thing about granting powers exclusively to a group: those powers are worth money, and so they are used as bargaining chips much like any other property. The major political parties have something to sell, which is control over who can become president, and so they are likely to be "captured" by special interest groups and commercial interests. This is how it usually happens in democracy, but with a twist, because our "checks and balances" have created many gatekeepers, each of which has a "power property" to sell.

Re:Any powers granted are properties

[Archangel Michael]

The biggest gatekeepers are the two main parties themselves. They host their nominating process on the dime of the taxpayer, not all support the two party system.

1) I don't have a problem with the parties picking who they are going to run, anyway they want. I oppose it being funded by Tax payers. They should pay for it themselves.

2) Primaries should have all parties represented with their OWN (singular) candidate. This is to get to the top two candidates.

3) I am all for the electoral college. Imagine for a second, the top two California Candidates are Bernie(Socialist Party) and Hillary(DNC). And the top two Texas Candidates being Ted (TeaParty) and Donald (GOP) and really messing up the Electoral Collage being the ONLY candidates available for those two states in November. No GOP/Conservative in CA, and no Liberal/Socialist in TX. And the VP is the runner up (rather than party ticket) (like it was before)

The fact is PARTY(aka Group) politics has ruined this country, and there is no going back. I hate the fact that Parties are listed next to candidate's names as prima fascia evidence of divide and conquer of the elites who run the current system, trading favors for election cycle wins.

Re:Any powers granted are properties

[i.r.id10t]

The Democrat and Republican parties have too much influence on our political process. I agree with you, they should be a self-funded private organization.

However, the point of a primary is for the Party to decide who will represent it in the real election. As a private institution, I don't care how they do it. Of course, if I were a member of a party I may care, but then it is "my" club and there should probably be an internal process for deciding who gets on the primary ballots.

Re:Any powers granted are properties

[Darinbob]

The rules are stated up front by each party. Agreeing to the rules up front should mean that you don't Trump-out and bitch about it later or ask it to change and become a popularity contest when things don't go your way. The parties are private organizations and they can do whatever they hell they want. Democrats won't let me (not a party member) vote in their primaries in CA, Republicans will let me vote in theirs, just two groups with two different sets of rules.

The parties are the way they are because the people who bother to attend the meetings are the ones who get to vote on the rules. If someone doesn't like it then they need to get involved with the party by far more than checking a box on a voter registration form.

Re:Any powers granted are properties

[Sique]

How comes you think that the primaries are in any way supposed to find exactly two candidates to choose from in the general elections? The primaries are solely a way for a party to find a suitable, electable candidate to rally for. Any party could hold primaries, and if the U.S. had more than two big parties whose candidates had a fair chance at winning the general elections, you would have three or four primaries, where three or four candidates emerge.

The Republicans and the Democrats decided that having a public primary would work best for them. The primaries have several tasks to fulfill: weed out candidates with not enough appeal to a broader electorate, prepare the candidates for the general election battle, find the topics and the positions on those topics that get votes, raise the candidates to prominence and create some trade mark to use for the advertising campaigns.

The Republicans for instance found out that their conservative platform of "small government, family values, promote free trade everywhere" does not get enough votes, as their voting base wants something else. The Democrats found out, that a big part of their voting base is leaning toward more socialist recipes, not enough yet to unsettle the party itself, but a trend to watch for as it seems to appeal especially to younger people.

Any party, even both Democrats and Republicans, could decide that public primaries aren't the best tools for them anymore, and look for a new way to find their candidates. They could throw dices or hold a public poker tournament, they could have only a single, U.S. wide primary election for their candidates, they could have each local organisation send a delegate to a state conference, and then each state conference send a delegate to a U.S. conference, which then decides for a candidate from the delegates, they could just put up an announcement in the classified "election canditate wanted, apply at party headquarters" or whatever they think will get them a candidate with a high chance of winning the next elections. Primaries are not a given. They have just proven to work for both big parties.

Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[dfenstrate]

Debbie Wasserman-Schulz said straight out the super delegates were put in place to ensure party insiders would win against grassroots candidates.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[Thud457]

A great political philosopher once observed the harsh realities of our system:

You, President? This is the greatest country in the world. We've got a whole system set up to prevent people like you from ever becoming president. Quit your daydreaming, melonhead!

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[supertrooper]

If there is any justice she will be indicted by the FBI. She evaded justice few times already, so I'm guessing it's gonna happen again.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[NicBenjamin]

Bernie's not a grassroots Democratic candidate. He loses self-identified Democrats, and closed primaries, generally by extremely large margins. He's a grassroots left-wing independent candidate.

Now you might believe that encouraging such candidates is a good idea. But as somebody who has actually participated in the fairly complex, thankless, and completely unpaid work of getting all the cats in the same herd I kinda resent that a bunch of slacktivists think they should have as much influence over said coalition as I do despite the fact many of them are unwilling to change their voter registration to the Democratic party.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[Dasher42]

Actually, she's not winning free and clear; most of her significant wins have a cloud of large-scale voter suppression over them.

http://usuncut.com/politics/ne...
http://www.democracynow.org/20...
http://thinkprogress.org/polit...

And huge number of affidavit ballots cast in New York have simply not been counted.

Across the country, voters that have long been registered Democrat have discovered their registration details tampered to make their participation in closed primaries impossible. The door to this was left open when 191 million voter records were leaked, making re-registration with edited details trivial. The earlier scandal over the DNC voter records being open allow for specific targeting of those not supporting Clinton which is the demographic reporting issues.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/04/...

Quite simply, yes, there's overwhelming signs that this election is being heavily rigged and in dirty

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[tnk1]

Okay, trying again...

In this race, it is irrelevant. She's winning without superdelegates. By about a 200 delegate margin.

Sanders may have the deck stacked against him, but it has nothing to do with superdelegates.

Even superdelegate Bill Clinton has said he'd vote for Sanders if he won fair and square. But he's not winning.

Don't get me wrong, I know both parties are backroom dealers, but let's stop talking about something that is already pointless. It was a bogeyman early on, but now we're 40 states voted and out of the way. It's pretty much done. Let's move on.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[sjames]

When I voted in the primary, it was at a public school. If you want to hold a private insider's only party, you can pay to hold it in a private venue.

Or skip the primary entirely and put everyone who throws their hat in the ring on the presidential ballot.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[SuperKendall]

That is an excellent point, how many public resources are spent on both Republican AND Democratic primaries? The mind boggles!

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[quantaman]

Actually, she's not winning free and clear; most of her significant wins have a cloud of large-scale voter suppression over them.

http://usuncut.com/politics/ne...
http://www.democracynow.org/20...
http://thinkprogress.org/polit...

And at least in NY that likely would have disproportionately older people (it seemed to hit people with old registrations more) and minorities (because they always get hit the worst by voting issues). Aka Hillary's base.

Whatever you think of Hillary's politics she won because more people wanted to vote for her and more people did vote for her.

The door to this was left open when 191 million voter records were leaked, making re-registration with edited details trivial. The earlier scandal over the DNC voter records being open allow for specific targeting of those not supporting Clinton which is the demographic reporting issues.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/04/...

Quite simply, yes, there's overwhelming signs that this election is being heavily rigged and in dirty

Ok, lets look at the first piece of evidence from that link.

Shelly Berry shared on Facebook that she had proof her New York voter registration was changed. Her registration was switched from Democrat to unaffiliated and she was told the change was made in 2012.

So Hillary's dastardly plan to rig the primary by specifically suppressing Bernie supporters began four years ago?

Otherwise do you have any idea how many people would need to be involved to mess with enough registration records to really affect the democratic primary? That's a 9-11 truther level of conspiracy theory.

Sure there are problems with the US's voting system, it's a disorganized mess, it may be worse this year or it might just look worse because of the extra scrutiny.

But voting issues + your favourite candidate not winning aren't the same as "overwhelming signs that this election is being heavily rigged and in dirty".

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[NicBenjamin]

Bernie's problem isn't that he's outside the party. He's actually been one of my favorites since High School. Several state Democratic parties actually do not have the label "Democratic party," notably Minnesota's "Democratic-Farmer-Labor," and North Dakota. One of Maine's Senators is also officially an independent who caucuses with the Dems, as was Joe Lieberman. And (except for Lieberman, who, IMHO, has no soul) they're all fine.

Bernie's problem is different. Many of his supporters are the kind of people who disdain large institutions as terribly ineffective. In some ways this is true (they never finish the to-do list), particularly in politics; in other ways it's silly (you know "Checks and Balances"? designed to stop political parties from finishing their to-do lists).

But it means some of his guys tend to refuse to re-register as Dems to vote for him, others don't plan far ahead enough to re-register in time (and yes, I will agree New York's re-registration deadline was ridiculous), and they tend to blame the large institution. When they could have easily avoided the problem by simply registering with the party they knew they were gonna vote in the first damn place.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[Fire_Wraith]

She's actually much further ahead in pledged delegates than Obama was at this point in the 2008 primaries.

It is true that Superdelegates were included to give a sort of veto over the nominee - back in the aftermath of 1972 and the McGovern debacle. That said, they're a tactic that has never been actually used, to the point that it's now all but unthinkable to do so, because of the backlash which would inevitably follow using them to overturn the popular voting results. It would almost certainly lead to a crushing defeat in the general election. They really should just get rid of them entirely, because they've become a distraction.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[Fire_Wraith]

It was actually a reform pushed around the turn of the century (19th to 20th), as part of the same movement that pushed the 17th amendment allowing the direct election of Senators. The idea was (as I understand it) to take nominations away from the party bosses and smoke filled rooms, and put it in the hands of the people. It's still largely a state by state thing, and some don't have public funded primaries, or primaries at all, opting for party caucuses instead. Some also have different rules on open versus closed primaries.

Reference: http://ivn.us/2015/07/30/story...

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[ScentCone]

Benghazi!

Her conduct in that matter is mostly just an example her general sleaziness and sociopathic dishonesty.

.

As far has here private email server she'll get indicted when Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice get indicted for doing similar things with their email.

You're either completely uninformed about the details of the situation, or you're trying to be deliberately misleading. Either way, please stop. Go learn the facts, or stop lying about it to serve your agenda.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[chispito]

most of her significant wins have a cloud of large-scale voter suppression over them.

http://usuncut.com/politics/ne... http://www.democracynow.org/20... http://thinkprogress.org/polit...

When your guys is losing, there is always "large-scale voter suppression."

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[Felix Da Rat]

Just making sure I'm clear here. Because you volunteer your time, you have more right to determine who can be president of our nation than I do.

I'm an Independent, thankfully my state allows me to vote for whom I think will do the best for our Country, regardless of supporting a 'party'.

However, if I lived somewhere else, where I did not have that luxury; your vote would be worth more than mine.

Why?

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[argStyopa]

"But as somebody who has actually participated in the fairly complex, thankless, and completely unpaid work of getting all the cats in the same herd I kinda resent that a bunch of slacktivists think they should have as much influence over said coalition as I do"

You did the "thankless" work? Your vote is still worth precisely...1 slactivist.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[NicBenjamin]

You have a right to vote in November.

You do not have an absolute Right to vote in the primary. Note the capital. I am not referring to the rights you think you have as an American, because those fond delusions tend to be more the result of unreasonably patriotic Grade School educations*, but rather the ones you actually have in Court. And in Court, the Supremes have very consistently ruled that people like me (who run the parties) have the capital-R-Right to exclude people like you from their partisan primary.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[riverat1]

The Hillary getting 6 of 6 coin tosses was a bogus story. There were a lot more than 6 coin tosses in Iowa that night and Bernie got his fair share of them.

As far as allegations of fraud in the Franken election they are just allegations by people who didn't like the results. Show up with some actual proof of fraud and I'll start to listen.

Re:Explicit goal of the Democratic party system.

[lister king of smeg]

Benghazi! As far has here private email server she'll get indicted when Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice get indicted for doing similar things with their email.

except the law was changed in between and it was illegal during her tenure in office but not theirs.

News Flash

[Virtucon]

More than half of Americans think the whole election process is rigged, not just nominations.

Oh here's more

More than half of Americans don't care to actually catch up on candidates' positions or who for that matter care who they vote for. They vote along party lines because that's what dear old grannie did or those nice politicians promised me free shit.

Re:News Flash

[Obfuscant]

and don't always stick to a single party's platform, you're penalized by the system for being independent.

You mean people who belong to a certain party aren't as likely to vote for you if you don't hold to the party's platform? Ummm, d'oh.

At least in my state I can't vote in the primary unless I register with one of the two big parties.

Primaries are intended for the parties to select their candidates. Why do you think you should have a voice in what candidate a party puts forward for election when you aren't a member of that party?

There's too much "helping" going on already. That's where a member of one party registers as the other so they can "help" the other party pick an unelectable candidate. That's dishonest at best.

Political parties are private institutions

[TsuruchiBrian]

They should be able to nominate whoever they want, in whatever method they want, fair or not. The real problem is that they get special privileges. They are using the federal and state governments to legitimize and pay for their primaries. Let the political parties run and pay for their own primaries. The state and federal government should only facilitate the candidacy of individuals to public office, it should not even acknowledge the existence of political parties. Maybe if we pretend for long enough, it will come true.

Re:Political parties are private institutions

[Burdell]

While I agree with you, the "public" primaries are also there to keep our choices from being completely controlled by back-room deals.

I'd prefer to abolish party primaries and allow more open general election ballot access (although I don't think having 20+ people on the ballot for a single position is necessarily an improvement, so some legitimate signature minimums or something should exist). Go to a ranked voting system, where you can rank up to 3 candidates, and you rarely would need a run-off.

The Repubocrats and Demlicans would never allow that though. In my state, the Libertarian Party got to "major party" status for one election cycle (where their governor candidate was "featured" at the top and had the "vote party line" option); the R&D powerhouse quickly got the state laws changed to eliminate that competition as soon as possible. Anything other than politics and they'd be considered an illegal cartel and shut down for restraint of trade...

Re:Political parties are private institutions

[RandCraw]

The parties are not actually private, they're corporations. Worse, R and D also have become monopolies. (OK, oligopolies, to please the hairsplitters). Because they now exclusively control admission to US politics, no US candidate for high office can hope to compete without A) being a member, or B) having a huge private war chest (hundreds of millions) or C) direct access to major media -- all of which Trump has, two of which Perot had, none of which Anderson had. Even then, Trump has elected to check all three of these boxes knowing how stacked the deck is against him otherwise.

The political parties are guaranteed no special protections under the Constitution, other than those of the First Amendment. Today, as de facto gatekeepers to government office, we very badly need to redefine the role of political parties, something that starts and ends with their money.

It's easy enough to fix: demand a constitutional amendment requiring that all monies spent in campaigns by and for *specific* political candidates must arise from a limited pool of public money. (This should not run afoul of the First Amendment, since candidates are not 'speech'.) All other monies routed to or spent by candidates or elected officials shall be considered bribes (including their own money).

All other developed countries have this law or something very like it. Until America catches up with the times, our public policy will continue to be sold to the highest bidder... Wall Street and giant corporations.

Re:Political parties are private institutions

[MillionthMonkey]

The U.S. Constitution doesn't specifically mandate a two-party system, and it poses no *legal* barriers to form a third party. But unlike a parliamentary democracy, the winner-take-all elections proscribed in the Constitution guarantee that third parties will fail.

We all revere the parts of the Constitution that we like (the Bill of Rights) but the main part of the U.S. Constitution has some major design errors. Winner-take-all elections are one of those. The writers of the Constitution weren't looking carefully for such flaws, because back then, constitutions were things that you wrote, used for a while, then crumpled up and rewrote at another convention. It was widely assumed the document would be rewritten or at least amended, perhaps during their own lifetimes. Everyone "knew" that back then.

But over time the U.S. Constitution has gained the aura of a religious text written by ancient prophets. The people who wrote it would have been shocked if you told them that it would last more than 200 years, and that every word in their letters to each other would be endlessly analyzed and reinterpreted like the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans. Since they knew they wouldn't live forever, they specified that the interpretation of their document would be the job of the Supreme Court. Recently the Court started ignoring case law and started holding seances to divine what the opinions of these dead men would be about current issues. But 21st century jurisprudence wasn't a responsibility that they expected to shoulder from beyond the grave.

If they had known two centuries ago that medical progress would lengthen the lives of judges well into their years of senility, they might have reconsidered lifetime appointments for them. They certainly didn't expect that judges would become senile enough to extend First Amendment protections specifically to the solicitation of bribes by members of Congress- effectively *mandating* that a Congressman's first duty is no longer legislating, but asking people for bribes, in the name of "free speech".

The framers were smart enough to put in a mechanism for adding Amendments, and this worked for a long time. But like so many other things in the Constitution, this has gotten hollowed out and rendered meaningless in a thousand little different ways. There is realistically no chance that any Amendment will ever get passed again.

No great empire can support itself for more than several centuries before forgetting its roots and entering decline; that has been true throughout human history- for the Romans, the Mayans, the Ottomans, the ancient Egyptians, and now the US and Western Europe. The United States has entered a new phase, where a plutocratic oligarchy governs with an iron fist while still operating within the hollowed-out structure of the former democracy that it replaced.

And, So What?

[sycodon]

The nominating process is defined by the Party. A Private entity.

Since it exists in a private organization, there is no legal obligation to be "fair", despite the context of Primaries and political parties, which kind of suggests fair voting and representation.

Interesting.

Re:And, So What?

[sjames]

Then why was the primary here held at a public school using state owned voting machines?

Re:And, So What?

[slinches]

Because the two dominant parties successfully lobbied for government handouts.

Re:And, So What?

[ScentCone]

Of course, any group (not just the Ds and Rs) can avail themselves of the same public service, if they pass the (quite low, actually) threshold of showing they've put together a viable group that wants to run their prospective candidates through the primary process using state/county infrastructure.

They believe... They don't think

[fustakrakich]

If they thought about it, they would do wild and crazy things, like petition for and vote for independent candidates. You don't need money to get on the ballot. You only need signatures and votes. If you speak up they cannot stop you. If you don't make the effort, then you will suffer destiny. 98% of the people who vote choose to follow the herd, but it's still a personal choice. No outside force was applied.

Re:I'm okay with this

[tnk1]

Its a trade off. Stopping Trump in an underhanded or backroom way could break the party. It might be a worthy sacrifice, but the Republican party will not survive that screw-job if they make that move.

I expect that unless everyone else quits and releases their delegates to Cruz (and even then, the rules don't always allow such direction), the Republican Party will have Trump as their candidate.

There is only one scenario that could take it away from Trump at this point, something that makes Trump unelectable, like a criminal charge or some sort of very dirty scandal. That is the only way you're walking out of the convention without Trump as the candidate unless you can line up every remaining delegate, including Kaisch's and Rubio's behind Cruz.

I'm not sure what would be worse, Cruz or Trump. Cruz is not good in the sense he's going to get his ass handed to him and he's a jerk. And Trump is bad, because he's Trump and because he actually has a chance to beat Clinton. I don't think he will, but if something nasty comes out about Clinton at the wrong time, she could be vulnerable. Trump would not hesitate to attack her directly and very hard if she shows any vulnerability.

I'll say one thing for Trump, he's definitely not pulling any punches, and some of them are landing. Clinton is pretty much the "default" status quo candidate, which is damning her with faint praise. If anything weakens her, she could find herself in a world of hurt and in the general election, there are independents out there who aren't owned by her which could make a difference.

Re:Well, duh

[AuMatar]

Actually studies find that most people don't make significant changes in their politics from their youthful opinions. They may move on singular issues, but they don't go from liberal to conservative. What you do see is the definition of liberal and conservative changing to reflect the changed policies- someone who was a social liberal 30 years ago could now be called conservative even if he didn't change his opinion on a single issue, because the liberals have won most of the long term social issues.

Rigged by design...

[dark.nebulae]

It is rigged, but it is rigged by design.

The thought was that the populace at large could be swayed towards a charismatic yet evil candidate. The populace at large could elect the delegates, but the thought was that as "insiders" they would be less influenced by charm and would choose a candidate using reason instead of emotion.

You can make an argument that Trump or Bernie represent this sort of scenario, that voters are choosing them over other candidates for reasons of emotion, out of anger with current insiders or have fallen sway to the candidate's charm. The delegates, as experienced representatives, are supposed to be less influenced by charm and would use wisdom to back a different candidate.

So the delegates are meant to rescue us and the republic from the rise of extremists or demagogues.

While this is how it was designed to work, over time the concept has become corrupted by money, influence and power. It's hard to say whether any of the candidates or the public at large is getting more of the shaft over the system now.

Re: I don't see the problem..

[the_skywise]

No, he's not.

The system is fair to voters come the actual election time.

Private political parties hold primaries and caucuses to choose whom they're going to run as candidates. The primaries give the ILLUSION of voter participation but it's still a matter of voter suggestion. The party leadership has the final say on who runs.

If the voters don't like the candidates they're voting for or don't think they're getting a fair deal voters HAVE TO GET INVOLVED IN THE PARTIES OR START THEIR OWN to put the people they want onto the ballot come election time.

It's NOT rocket science. It IS work which seems to be anathema to Americans anymore.

Don't like it? Change it!

[Fallen Kell]

I mean it is just that simple. Of COURSE the system is rigged towards the "party insiders". IT IS THEIR PARTY! The Democrat and Republican party leaders have final say in how they want their party to work, and these "outsiders" are attempting to get the endorsement of respective party leaders to run on that party's name.

Of course the party leadership has setup rules to be able to influence who is and isn't able to be put forward as their candidate. If you don't like those rules, you have a choice to either get high enough up in the respective party to influence a change of the rules, or go start your own damn party and set your own rules.

Re:Well, duh

[inode_buddha]

Really? When I began HS, Carter was prez. I was republican all the way up to Bush. I am here to tell you that the Millenials are actually correct here. The young ones aren't lying, they've been handed a shit sandwich, just like myself and may others who were dumb enough to believe the BS so many yrs ago.

Capitalism being fair? It was never designed to be. I spent the last 30 yrs working my ass off making others far richer than I'll ever be, and I'm still in the same tax bracket.... so yeah I'm pissed. And nowdays I'm Independent, because what goes around comes around.

BS

[s.petry]

The super delegates problem is a side effect of the same thing that has Clinton leading, which is that insiders chose their candidate years ago. Hillary is leading because the media, owned by that same insider group, plays her constant lip service and has for well over a year leading up to this election. Other owned politicians are similarly playing her lip service. There is little to no talk about the corruption in her public service, no talk about how she openly panders and lies to do so, and no talk about her political past as the first lady which would harm her campaign.

Early on, she won how many tie breakers by coin toss exactly? Winning because of votes my ass! She is winning because voters were given a horrible choice and even when they pick the "evil socialist" option they were revoked by this system you claim she is "winning".

Over 50% of the public thinks the system is rigged, the rest are either blind or have not looked into it. There is that .01% or so who know it's rigged and fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. They are happy to pay turds to claim "it's fair" despite how easy it is to prove that it's anything but "fair".

Re:BS

[tnk1]

I don't claim she's winning. She *is* winning.

Mind you, I am not saying she's not corrupt. You might have me confused with someone who plans on voting for her in the next election. I'm not. If someone like Trump or Cruz wins, it just means that I find a nice third party candidate on Election Day, or I just skip it entirely. 2016 is literally taking every candidate that I said I'd never vote for and filling the ballot with them.

However, winning is winning. Unless someone changes the electoral system in the Democratic party, she's winning and probably will win. Yes, it is a game that doesn't have a 1:1 relation to voters or even fairness. That only means that the election is a game that happens to reward what she's doing.

People need to stop giving a shit about what is "fair" and start giving a shit about the actual game being played, because the game's rules aren't changed by complaining about them if you're unrepresented.

Re:BS

[Darinbob]

If it's rigged, then it's rigged in the parties and only the party members who bother to show up at the party meetings should be complaining about it. Someone passively calling themselves a Democrat without being involved in the party really has no leg to stand on when they complain it's rigged. In some sense, the party primaries aren't even supposed to be "fair" to the public, they're only intended to be fair to the active members of the party (those who are involved in party business as opposed to those who just vote in primaries after having checked a box on a form).

Reframe this narrative please.

[BigU 03C0mpin]

This is not people "waking up". That might have applied during the hanging chad fiasco of the W/Gore election, but this is way beyond that.

What has actually happened is there's a demographic shift in the majority of the voting public. This is the last election where the Baby Boomers will hold any major sway in the election and it frightens the heck out of the establishment because they're about to lose control. The largest voting bloc going forward is going to be digital natives and early adoption digital immigrants.

These are people who didn't have limited resources that they could scour endlessly for rote memorization. Instead they have vast information access at their fingertips and have to filter through to find the truth. It's gone from "knowing a few things about something" to "being able to find anything". While those kids may come across as lazy and tuned out, they have the ability to run circles around the establishment for researching what's really going on. The speed at which information travels is still too much for the major political parties to fathom. They can't rely on smoke, mirrors and a complicit mass media anymore. They either have to change or get pushed out.

Sticking to the "Oh they're finally waking up?" narrative is just trying to frame it in the establishments favor. They aren't waking up, they woke up years ago, now they're pissed off because the party is overtly (Thanks for the admission, Wasserman-Schultz) screwing them over and they can actively see it. How many states had major issues during caucus events that led to voters feeling like they were intentionally hindered? How many now have lawsuits or were threatened with lawsuits based on this?

Kings only stay kings as long as the masses let them.

Re:Maybe

[tnk1]

Was there ever a more electable left wing challenger on the Democratic side? Left wingers, they certainly have. Electable ones? Eh. Sanders is actually the best they've got, and he's done well for himself. Considering that Sanders, despite being a socialist crank, has been in the Senate for years, I certainly don't consider him to have been the least electable candidate out there on the left fringe.

I'm sure that come next election the Millenials will either have turned the country Socialist or they will have gotten 10 years older and gone the way of the hippies. Sanders will have a better chance next election, if he hasn't retired or died by then.

Re:I'm okay with this

[CanadianMacFan]

I'd prefer Trump over Cruz because a Republican Congress and Senate probably wouldn't work with Trump very well. There's enough animosity between the two that I could see them fighting over almost everything where Cruz would work well. Plus I don't like how Cruz's first instinct is to carpet bomb foreign countries.

What would be really interesting is if Trump doesn't get enough delegates to win in the first round and they give the nomination to Cruz so Trump runs as an independent and Sanders decides to do the same. I hope that not just one side doesn't split and run as an independent.

Actually I just really feel sorry for the lack of choice the voters have.

And the other half is wrong

[JoeyRox]

It's definitely rigged.

I guess that finally proves,

[frnic]

The other half are as stupid as a rock.

Re:Maybe

[erp_consultant]

Exactly right. The only person that the Establishment Republicans hate more than Cruz is Trump. But at least with Cruz they can control him because Cruz needs their money.

Jeb was their guy all along. He had all the money but proved to be one of the blandest candidates in recent memory. He couldn't get elected Cub Scout leader never mind presidential candidate. They probably flirted briefly with Dr. Ben Carson. After all, he's black and successful and conservative so that had potential. Until they found out that he actually had principles and wasn't going to be their puppet on a string so that immediately disqualified him from further consideration.

Next up - Rubio. Hispanic, good hair (hey it worked for Mitt Romney), malleable, more than willing to be a puppet on a string as long as it led to power. Perfect establishment candidate. Except that he stumbled with the "little hands" comment about Trump and those goofy boots.

Things are starting to look desperate for the Establishment Republicans. Kasich and Carly are non-starters. VP material at best. And even that is a stretch. So they hold their noses and go with Cruz. They hate his guts but the enemy of my enemy is my friend as the saying goes. Trump is uncontrollable. At this point he's basically in an all out war with the RNC. At least with Cruz they feel they can control him.

Sad that only half realize we're serfs

[WillAffleckUW]

And very sad the other 49 percent revel in their serfdom.

Wait.

Serfs had rights.

Americans don't.

Strike that.

Duverger's Law: hate the game, not the players

[PseudoThink]

Blaming the parties may be missing the root cause -- that our archaic plurality voting system eventually fosters a two-party system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The main problem is that understanding how voting is broken is tougher than coming to terms with climate change or unisex bathrooms. As long as people are content to get into shouting matches over their favorite political grapplers while ignoring that they are actually watching the equivalent of the WWF and not the Olympics, nothing will change.

Re:Duverger's Law: hate the game, not the players

[Archangel Michael]

Our Archiac Pluralistic Voting system includes having parties nominate their own candidates on the tax payer dime.If the PARTIES can't identify themselves on a ballot (no D or R or S or L after the name) then we can stop voting for Party's with planks we don't agree with.

I want people to be able to smoke weed and don't want our government to run massive debts. Which party represents me? Not the two main ones. And there are a shit ton of people like me, who don't give a shit about gay / straight people and just want government to leave us the hell alone! I mean I don't give a shit if Target wants pedophiles in the girls bathroom because they are too short sighted to see the actual problems with policies that are based on warm fuzzy feelings. Make a damn bathroom that can be used by anyone, and lets not give a shit about who is or isn't a boy/girl or whatever. We don't need government MANDATING our bathroom etiquette.

Re:Duverger's Law: hate the game, not the players

[AthanasiusKircher]

Duverger's Law is frequently misunderstood. It says there is a tendency toward two-party systems in plurality voting. However, there is no guarantee that those two parties will always be the same, nor that they will remain stable in their platforms. Strong movements outside the system can therefore move the major parties politically or in a severe shift even replace a major party.

Do I blame the Republicans or Democrats and their leaderships for being dominant parties? No. But they have gone far beyond the natural tendencies in Duverger's Law: they have recently sought to exclude alternative movements that threaten them by increasingly undemocratic means. The Republicans really raised the bars after Perot's movements in 1992 and 1996. The Dems did it too after their narrative of blaming Nader for Gore's weak candidacy in 2000. These parties have sought to exclude other choices by increasing thresholds to get on ballots (usually signatures, but also other requirements), increasing thresholds for other parties to be involves in debates, etc.

There are lots of other subtle ways the major parties have entrenched their monopoly in the past few decades. And THAT is something they should be blamed for. Just like you don't begrudge a business for becoming a monopoly if it sells a good product, but when it starts trying to drive other superior products out of business through unfair business practices, you should note the behavior is unjust. Dems and Reps deserve to be called out for trying to build in ways to suppress current and future challenges to their duopoly.

Re:Duverger's Law: hate the game, not the players

[John.Banister]

I just want government to leave us the hell alone, so long as "us" are groups of 10 or fewer people. Big corporate entities that keep people employed full time for PR don't get the same automatic hands-off treatment.

Also, as previously mentioned, in any big overhaul of how voting is done, that winner-takes-all bullshit has to stop.

Americans aren't helping, either

[kheldan]

For a country that ostensibly is 'government by the people, for the people', the 'people' don't seem to give a damn. If 100% of eligible voters bothered to go vote, I think it'd be a very different situation.

As it should be

[Chelloveck]

It is rigged, and it should be. Political parties are not part of the government. They're private entities. They can nominate whoever they want. I don't care how they do it, whether they poll their members or read tarot cards or have some secret shadowy figure choose from in the back of a smoke-filled room. Parties should choose their candidates in pretty much any way except via primaries. At least, any way except taxpayer-paid primaries. If the parties want to foot the bill for the time and effort expended to poll the general public, more power to them.

The appalling part isn't how the candidates are chosen by the parties. It's how the electoral system is rigged to keep the two big parties in power. The whole thing is set up to encourage an Us-versus-Them attitude. If anyone votes for a candidate without a (D) or (R) after their name they're just "throwing their vote away". There's no way in hell that any third-party presidential candidate is going to get a majority or even a plurality of votes.

That's the part that needs to be fixed. Switch to an instant run-off system or something else that encourages votes for who people really want to lead, rather than just encouraging votes against the worst guy. Change parties to an advisory system, where instead of running a candidate every party endorses one (or more) candidates. And get rid of the fscking (D) and (R) after the candidates' names, like their sole job is to represent the party's interest. We're not voting a party into the presidency, we're voting an individual in there. Let's minimize the party influence, or we're going to continue to be governed by unelected party officials who are pulling the candidates' strings.

Re:Maybe

[93 Escort Wagon]

They probably flirted briefly with Dr. Ben Carson. After all, he's black and successful and conservative so that had potential. Until they found out that he actually had principles and wasn't going to be their puppet on a string so that immediately disqualified him from further consideration.

Finding out he was basically insane might've played into that as well.

Re:Why the hell is this on Slashdot?!

[MalleusEBHC]

Science, tech, math, and computing are all greatly influenced by US government policies. (Okay, maybe math not as much.) If the manner of electing the most influential US politician is not stuff that matters, then what is?

Also, if you're implicitly playing the "how slashdot used to be" card, I love to break it to you: slashdot has always cared about and commented on US politics.

Re:Maybe

[erp_consultant]

They need to control Trump in order to further the establishment agenda. I disagree that Trump is not at war with the RNC. He and Priebus have been going at it ever since there was talk of a contested convention.

Re:Maybe

[ScentCone]

To the extent the media pushes anybody consistently, it pushes Trump

Sure, if by "pushing" you mean "ridiculing," "complaining about," and the like. Most of the media spends all of their Trump-related coverage on saying how much they hate him. And they spend more or less NONE of their time examining Sanders' pie-in-sky low-information support base or Clinton's nearly-delusional-in-their-willingness-to-ignore-her-lies-and-phoniness support base.

Re:It's openly rigged.

[meerling]

I find it hard to believe that around half the country isn't aware it's a rigged situation. Heck, we were taught about it in highschool in the 80s and it was obvious to us kids then!

Runoff elections, not primaries

[swb]

The presidential election needs runoff elections, not primaries.

Runoff election 1 should allow anyone who can raise a million signatures to be on the ballot nationally. This would require enough time and organization to keep out the joke candidates and the true crackpots, but still allow for niche candidates or underdogs to get onto the ballot if they can demonstrate some legwork.

Runoff election 2 should be made up of the top 10 vote getters in runoff 1. That's enough to still give minor candidates exposure, but will all but assure crackpots don't make the cut.

Both runoff elections should be open and party-independent. You can label yourself by an actual party or none at all.

The top 4 candidates from runoff 2 should be on the final ballot in November and the winner decided by ranked choice voting. No party dependencies. If the top 4 end up being 3 Democrats and 1 Republican, so be it, the three Democrats are offering enough unique value to the electorate that they don't feel the need to dump all but one.

The existing system sucks because of the ridiculous state by state nature of ballots. I fine with devolved government, but devolving the method of electing a common president is lunacy, and it makes it extraordinarily hard for a third party to get much traction.

This results in third parties being dismissed as ineffective and forces independent minded candidates like Trump or Sanders to identify with a major party and be subject to rules and a party establishment that has other ideas. I get it, parties are private, but you face impossible odds if you're not a major party candidate, which gives ridiculous power to two parties to control who's even available as an option.

The process of selecting who ends up on the final ballot should be wide open. Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians or National Socialists can have whatever process they want for their own internal candidate choice, but it should not be a determinant for who is actually available to be voted for by the public.

The machine is comprehensive

[EmperorOfCanada]

What many people don't realize is that the party machine is much bigger than a single election or politician. Politicians come and go for the most part, but the machine is there today, tomorrow, and for a long time to come.

This has huge implications for those preparing to fight the machine. For instance if some small town guy puts up a Feel the Bern sign, the local democratic HOA or alderman will come knocking and put a bit of pressure on that person even if they agree with them and like the person in question. The reason they will do this is because the machine remembers who supports and who hurts them. So while they might be able to directly get to the guy who puts up the sign they can get to the people who can shut him down. They will deny the alderman support in the next election. Even the HOA president would be in trouble if the local state legislator showed up at a HOA election BBQ for the opponent this year instead of them.

This doesn't only apply to elections and election support. The airport might have been funded by a party senator, jobs at that airport, contracts at that airport, etc are very much handed out to party loyalists. So maybe the company that has the fuel contract is the employer of the guy with the sign. A little reminder as to who is in charge of their future will have them talk to the guy with the sign.

But this isn't a huge well organized conspiracy. Each level knows what is expected of it and just acts. Thus there are no wiretaps that will expose this, no paper trails to follow.

The crazy part is that both machines are active regardless of who is in power, or even who is the default party in that neck of the woods. If you take a state like Connecticut which will never go all republican, you still have a republican party machine that demands loyalty.

Where it gets even weirder is that they are like a cult hunting apostates. When the machine sees someone supporting the other party, that is from their view a healthy part of democracy. He won't get any contracts while they are in power, but they aren't overly vindictive. It is when their own don't support the candidate picked in a smokey back room. Those disloyal Mofos need to be taught some respect.

This is one of the reasons Millennials are the ones supporting Sanders, they aren't typically part of the machine and getting their livelihood from the machine. But if you are 60 and own a solid pillar-of-the-community business, then you don't dare turn your back on your superiors.

Re:Really?

[Sique]

If this is a game where you decide who should be playing in the league football team, then it has the desired result: It has been shown that it's clever to nominate an 18 years old adult instead of an 8 years old autistic child. Yes, the 8 years old autistic child doesn't have a chance, but if I want the league football team to score sometimes in the season, I want that 18 years old adult in the team.