Gerrymandering, lobbyists, hanging chads, the Supreme Court, denying former felons the vote, Jim Crow style voter disenfranchisement, two parties that at times are indistinguishable, a two year election cycle, SuperPACs, Citizen’s United, political family dynasties, billionaires, voter apathy.
There are plenty of things that make elections meaningless.
We generally assume all these problems could be solved by taking money out of the equation, shortening the election cycle, getting more middle class candidates and fewer billionaires, and eliminating corruption.
That’s all well and good, but the problems begin with the Republicans and Democrats — specifically, their primaries.
In the attached spreadsheet you can see how both parties use the primaries to thwart the will of the people.
| Problem | Description |
|---|---|
| State primary delegates | Republicans and Democrats have different formulae for assigning state primary delegates. Democrats give Vermont 41 delegates per million citizens and Texas 9 per million. Republicans give Wyoming 49 delegates per million citizens and California 4 per million. Some states count for more than others. |
| Super delegates | The Democrats, especially, have un-elected delegates who come from the monied and politically-connected classes, who are given carte blanche to select whomever they want at convention. We have been seeing this phenomenon as Hillary Clinton maintains a slim popular lead over Bernie Sanders, while amassing twice the number of delegates. In fact, almost 19% of the Democratic Party’s delegates are super-delegates. In the District of Columbia there are actually more super-delegates than regular delegates. The same goes for American colonies like American Samoa (40%), Guam (42%), Northern Marianas (45.5%), and the US Virgin Islands (42%). But super-delegates also afflict US states as well: Delaware (32%), Massachusetts (21%), New Hampshire (25%), Rhode Island (27%), Vermont (39%), and DC (56%). Amazingly, voters in the Blue states just hand the keys over to the party grownups. |
| Regional biases | The apportionment of state delegates, previously discussed, creates a bias in which some regions carry more weight in conventions. The Democrats allocate more delegates per capita to Blue states than Red, while the Republicans do the reverse. If you are a Democrat in a Red state, your convention vote doesn’t count as much. If you are a Republican in a Blue state, all hope is lost. These are situations created by the delegates own parties! |
| Winner Take All | Republicans, especially, are fond of Winner Take All primaries. Eighteen states adopt this rule for the Republican primaries. If you and 25% of your fellow party members voted for someone who lost, you get 0% representation at a convention. In five states delegates are not bound by the people’s choices. Isn’t American democracy great? |
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