US President 2016 - the Great Horse Race

[J842P]

so can someone explain to me again what is wrong with 1 vote per person - no delegates, no districts, no "winner takes all"... just 1 vote per person nationwide and whoever gets the most total votes wins.

Yes, the Republican primary is quite entertaining this year, but it doesn't seem very democratic in my opinion

Primary elections were never meant to be democratic. Governmental elections weren't originally meant to be democratic, let alone the elections of private organizations, i.e. the political parties.

 

[fast]

so can someone explain to me again what is wrong with 1 vote per person - no delegates, no districts, no "winner takes all"... just 1 vote per person nationwide and whoever gets the most total votes wins.

Yes, the Republican primary is quite entertaining this year, but it doesn't seem very democratic in my opinion

Primary elections were never meant to be democratic. Governmental elections weren't originally meant to be democratic, let alone the elections of private organizations, i.e. the political parties.

I often wonder just how many voters don't understand that the party is a private organization.

 

[Sarpedon]

Both the primary process and the electoral college process are designed to produce consensus choices with the appearance of a majority, so that the winner has an aura of legitimacy. If everyone just voted for whoever they wanted, for better or worse, we'd have dozens of candidates, and the winner would end up with like 12% of the vote, and most people wouldn't feel that person is legitimate. By having the primary process, each person can have their vote for whoever they want, with two people being returned as the consensus choices. By giving people the opportunity to vote twice, they are more likely to be satisfied. For example, in my caucus I voted for Sanders. In the general election, I will vote against Trump or Cruz. I am satisfied that I got the opportunity to exercise my political power in a productive way.

I suggest you look at Israel as an example of a country that more or less votes for whomever they want. They have parties, but aside from a few, the parties are mostly all about their leader, each prominent party having one dominant figure, and public figures frequently forming new parties whenever they please. It can be quite chaotic, and Israeli papers constantly complain about the resulting corruption.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Because if there one thing that the US electoral system has been successful at, it's weeding out corruption amongst the politicians.

 

[James Brown]

The theory is we're supposed to be directly connected to our Representative, one step removed from the President, and two steps removed from the Supreme Court Justices.

 

[lpetrich]

Why is Israel's experience supposed to be typical of proportional representation?

When anyone wants to criticize PR, they bring up Israel, as if it is the only PR-using nation that is ever worth talking about?

PR is nowadays widely used ( Table of voting systems by country), and most of the time, it does not seem to produce a lot of lurid drama. Some of the regulars here may come from countries that use PR, so they might be able to help out.

 

[Sarpedon]

I used Israel as an example of a political system which I perceive to be dominated by political personalities, rather than political parties, which I felt better represented the response to the question 'why not vote for whoever you like, and whoever gets the most votes wins, nationwide.' It seems to me that in every Israeli election cycle, some prominent person forms a new party, or one or more parties, bereft of a prominent leader, combine or wither away. It is that sort of volatility that better approximates the position that was asked about.

 

[funinspace]

Too bad Trump isn't a 4 letter word...

Can the Repug primary find further lows? I suppose it is possible. With these kinds of stunts, Trump may be left with about 5 women voting for him. Maybe Cruz will endorse Clinton after Trump gets the Repug nomination as a favor to his wife...


Yeah, the idea of creating marshal law zones around 'Muslim' neighborhoods is worse than these juvenile antics, but maybe Donald should be running for head of the Playboy mansion instead.

 

[ksen]

Maybe Cruz shouldn't have taken a hit at Melania first.

 

[funinspace]

Maybe Cruz shouldn't have taken a hit at Melania first.

Well it is certainly possible that Cruz is connected with Liz Mair and her super PAC Make America Awesome which created the social media adverts. However, maybe even a hint of a connection should be proffered before Trumpinating...

 

[RavenSky]

Both the primary process and the electoral college process are designed to produce consensus choices with the appearance of a majority, so that the winner has an aura of legitimacy. If everyone just voted for whoever they wanted, for better or worse, we'd have dozens of candidates, and the winner would end up with like 12% of the vote, and most people wouldn't feel that person is legitimate. By having the primary process, each person can have their vote for whoever they want, with two people being returned as the consensus choices. By giving people the opportunity to vote twice, they are more likely to be satisfied. For example, in my caucus I voted for Sanders. In the general election, I will vote against Trump or Cruz. I am satisfied that I got the opportunity to exercise my political power in a productive way.

I suggest you look at Israel as an example of a country that more or less votes for whomever they want. They have parties, but aside from a few, the parties are mostly all about their leader, each prominent party having one dominant figure, and public figures frequently forming new parties whenever they please. It can be quite chaotic, and Israeli papers constantly complain about the resulting corruption.

I understand why we have the primaries, and agree with your points on that. I am talking about the whole delegate part of it - especially where the delegates don't have to vote the same way as the actual electorate, and the "winner take all" delegate states.

Likewise in the general, most states have a "winner take all" by district (which is what leads to gerrymandering).

I understand why this process might have been preferable before technology - but in today's world? It seems quite ridiculous and an open invitation to the type of corruption we are seeing.

 

[Terrell]

Unless some of the states have changed the way they award their electoral votes since the last presidential election all of the states, except Maine & Nebraska, give their electoral votes on a winner take all basis. Maine & Nebraska give 2 electoral votes for carrying the state, and one for each Congressional district. The winner take all states, don't require you to get a majority of the votes in the state, only that you have more votes than any of the other candidates, no matter how small your margin.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Unless some of the states have changed the way they award their electoral votes since the last presidential election all of the states, except Maine & Nebraska, give their electoral votes on a winner take all basis. Maine & Nebraska give 2 electoral votes for carrying the state, and one for each Congressional district. The winner take all states, don't require you to get a majority of the votes in the state, only that you have more votes than any of the other candidates, no matter how small your margin.

Correct. The electoral college is winner take all period, except in a couple of states.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

How the Republican "Establishment" can unite the Party to stop Hillary -- Choose the candidate by LOTTERY

What the "Establishment" needs to do is choose at least one alternative candidate, maybe 3 or 4 or 5, to be submitted to the convention after no one wins a majority on the first ballot.

And this/these alternate(s) should be chosen BY LOTT, randomly, from a normal pool of candidates, which would be some group like the following:

all Republicans who served at least one full term in the Senate, plus

all Republicans who served at least one full term as Governor of a state, plus

all Republicans who served at least one full term as Mayor of a major city (more than 1 million population),

and perhaps all who served at least 3 or 4 terms as a member of the House.

Plus, they must be within a certain age range, such as 45-65, and perhaps never having been a previous candidate for President or Vice President.

And maybe a few other descriptions/categories (no criminal conviction etc.), but the list of requirements must be kept as simple as possible.

The names of those qualified go into a "drum" and the name(s) are drawn by hand, no computers, and this must be done in full public view, on camera, live, so it is verified beyond doubt that the drawing of the name(s) is neutral, without any rigging of the result.

The Trump and Cruz voters must be convinced that whatever name is finally nominated, the choice was not cooked up in a "smoke-filled room" by some high-level party big-wigs. Then they should be willing to accept the result voted by the delegates according to the normal rules which require the nominee chosen to receive a majority.

This way, it should be possible to come up with a candidate who will be supported by enough Trump and Cruz voters to defeat Hillary in November.


Otherwise, the result will be that Hillary wins:

Because if Trump or Cruz wins the nomination, it's a certainty that Hillary wins in November.

Whereas if the nomination is denied to them both, millions of Republicans will bolt the party and Hillary wins due to the loss of these votes.

 

[fast]

Both the primary process and the electoral college process are designed to produce consensus choices with the appearance of a majority, so that the winner has an aura of legitimacy.

Do you believe that, or is that just how people speak?

I'm not taking issue with your assessment of WHAT is the case. I don't even care to espouse a view on that. What jumps out at me is when you invoke motive by use of the word, "to." The reasoning behind why these processes are the way they are seems to be far removed from WHAT may unfold as being the case. It reminds me of racial allegations when an effect of a decision is attributed to the reason for the decision.

Anyway, these different processes are vastly different.

 

[MarkW]

And this/these alternate(s) should be chosen BY LOTT, randomly, from a normal pool of candidates, which would be some group like the following:

But if Trent Lott is choosing the alternates, how is it random?

Sorry, I know you meant "by lot," but I couldn't resist.

More seriously, do you really believe that Trump and Cruz and their supporters would accept such a process? A process that would result in a candidate who had not been supported by a single voter throughout the nomination process, much less won a single primary or caucus? Yes, the "alternates" themselves would be chosen in an open drawing, but the process for setting up the drawing would be a classic case of a "smoke filled room" decision. That's not to mention that a genuinely random process would have a real likelihood of turning up "alternatives" who would be pretty awful candidates. Suppose that one of the names that was chosen by lot was Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan? Or Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas? Or Senator Rand Paul? etc., etc.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, it is way to guarantee that only political insiders are ever chosen and there's zero ability of anyone to come along and upset the applecart and try to campaign against the corrupt establishment. If the goal is to even further concentrate power in the hands of the privileged elite, it's a wonderful strategy.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The question is, after Trump, how will the GOP try to "fix" their "broken" system to have a shot at future campaigns for president? Its going to be outsider insurgents vs establishment movement Republicans vs Tea Party vs Evangelicals, all looking to rewrite the rules and ways these things are decided in the future. For whatever reason as of now, it looks like Trump will in fact succeed in winning the nomination, and then go on to lose. And maybe lose the Senate to boot.

Things could get crazy. Mad and crazy can be a very bad mix.

 

[Thomas II]

Cruzism # 782

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Today's question. If the top two candidates for the nomination do not win the the nomination for the Republican Party, does the Republican Party create a situation where 30+% of the base that hates Hillary Clinton actually starts hating the Republican Party even more?

Cruzism # 782

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