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A Report on the Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries

(drive.google.com)
212 points DamienSF | 2 comments | 27 Jul 16 05:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.003s | source
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vannevar ◴[27 Jul 16 16:46 UTC] No.12174358[source]▶
I think the most interesting (and perhaps hopeful) aspect here is that people now have an expectation of fairness in the selection of party candidates. That's a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, I think people widely assumed that the party was biased towards individual candidates. Even now, that's clearly the case when the sitting President is a candidate. I personally think that expecting an unbiased party structure is unrealistic, given the very nature of the organization. The party doesn't have a product, other than its opinion. The idea that an organization of partisans only arrives at that collective opinion through primaries and caucuses seems quite naive to me.
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brudgers ◴[27 Jul 16 17:52 UTC] No.12175036[source]▶
To me there is an unquestioned premise to the article: why should the state [as in "government"] conduct elections on behalf of political parties. Enrolling voters as Democrat or Republican or whatever and then restricting the voter's access to ballot items based upon that enrollment [or non-enrollment] does not seem to be the business of the government.

A political party is free to change the rules for nominating candidates however and whenever it chooses. It is free to nullify the decision of those voting in a particular primary. A political party is free to nominate whomever it chooses [and almost certainly multiple candidates for the same office it wishes should it choose].

Ultimately the party, not a judge, chooses whose vote matters and whose doesn't. Placing the imprimatur of the state upon a political party's process doesn't change that or make the process of candidate nomination little 'd' democratic. The people within a political party charged with making the rules for candidate selection are not elected or selected little 'd' democratically. The process of nominating candidates is not little 'd' democratic in any meaningful sense.

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maxerickson ◴[27 Jul 16 18:06 UTC] No.12175177[source]▶
A political party is free to change the rules for nominating candidates however and whenever it chooses.

This is something we should take away from them. The outcomes of private party activities shouldn't have any impact on the names that appear on ballots. They can maybe mark the names they choose to endorse as an organization, but we should throw away the system where the parties are directly involved in putting names on the ballot (of course they'd be indirectly involved, as an organized group is, uh, organized and thus more ready to act together, so would have an easy time dealing with ballot petitions).

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1. russell_h ◴[27 Jul 16 19:48 UTC] No.12175958[source]▶
What you are describing is already more-or-less the system we have. You don't need to be nominated by any political party to run for office or have your name printed on a ballot.
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2. maxerickson ◴[27 Jul 16 19:53 UTC] No.12175991[source]▶
The rules for parties are often easier. My argument is that they shouldn't be.

I also don't like that a party could literally pick a name out of hat to designate their presidential candidate. Of course it would be terrible for a party itself to do that, but the system is setup so that name would end up on an awful lot of ballots.