A Report on the Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries

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.

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.