Ted Rall for April 19, 2016

Another unintended effect of Trump’s candidacy, exposing the convoluted delegate system.

Voter suppression in Arizona even got Republicans mad.

The Electoral College is made up of 538 electors who cast votes to decide the President and Vice-President of the United States.

It’s not like this has been a secret. People can understand complex rules used in baseball and football but I guess when it comes to primaries there isn’t much interest, just a lot of complaints when it doesn’t go their way.

Political parties are private associations not public branches of government. When I was born most states did not even hold primaries as the nominees were determined by state and national conventions of party members. And besides this country is a Republic not a Democracy. One only needs to read about ancient Athens and Rome to learn the difference. There is little new under the sun and while it is fine to want to change the system there is little point to act surprised by its current status.

There are more reasons for a republican vs. democratic form of government than just the distance to travel in per-industrial times. Government by elected representatives is intended to reduce the dangers of a pure democratic form of governance.

The run-up to the election highlights the problems and the myth of “democracy”. But once in power neither party has the desire to fix it.

Keep talking about private organizations with a monopoly between them of power over amounts most countries can’t touch (Federal budget, let alone states and city)

They only get to retain their position by the illusion they are of the people.

Also why is incompetence always thought to be “VOTER SUPPRESSION”.

1) New DMV system keeps switching peoples affiliation. I doubt that is on purpose but was a big mistake2) Independents were told they could put in a provisional ballot even though the rules (Hmm rules) were clearly stated.3) The lady in charge has been at the job since the 80s. Doubt she made this decision on the spur of the moment but more based on the poor showing the last few elections (given how those primaries went)

Now there is no true defense of what happened in AZ, but to blame everything on malice which is easily explained by bad judgement is also malicious. But then again you are probably that person.

Yes nominations and elections are separate processes, but both see benefits in diffusing the power of direct democracy. Its not just a hold over from the horse and buggy days, its a relevant means of controlling the tyranny of the majority.

Interesting program on TruTV – Adam Ruins Everything. In one episode, Adam “ruins” voting by explaining the electoral college along with other practices that make our elections less than fair.-Spoiler alert – at the end Adam tells us not to lose hope as elections in the past were worse. Think of minorities, women and the poor who were originally blocked completely.-People need to vote, In 2010, progressives stayed away from the polls because the economy wasn’t fixed yet and there were still wars going on, This was how so many state governments turned Republican. Then they got to redraw (gerrymander) congressional maps because of the census.

We are neither a democracy or a republic or a representative democracy. We are an oligarchy. Sad but true.

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

An excerpt: When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.

If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal.

The suggestions made by the voters to determine who the nominee should be for each party. The Democrats have super delegates and percentage based wins in states. Republicans have party leaders and winner take all states. This is all so we can then cast our vote who we like better while representatives take a handful of votes, take or give some, and then vote (usually) for the nominee with the most votes. There are a lot of places where this can get mucked up, it is very slow and deliberate. The parties are in charge of their own nomination and then help the race to the final White house. The third parties have to find a space to be noticed, and have the financial backing to be heard. This is a pretty bad system, but it is what the founding fathers intended to keep us safe from the tyranny of the majority. You could change it, but you’d either have to be elected by the system you claim you are going to destroy, or you have to be elected outside that system. So far no one has been able to do either.

I once heard that “democracy” was one person, one vote. “American democracy” is one dollar, one vote.

Hey a party makes its own rules. Go look up the party/primary system in the Constitution. It ain’t there. It’s like the first Amendment. Congress can’t pass laws against free speech but your employer can. And why not?.