Current Events > The primary process is about as fucked up as the electoral college

(+) Yeah! (+)

Timing and narratives

The order in which states vote seems... Entirely arbitrary? Iowa and New Hampshire get the privilege of going first, for, uh, reasons. But performance in early states will often establish media narratives that shape candidates throughout the race to come. Some will drop out based on the results of unrepresentative early states, meaning states don't even have the same slate of candidates on which to vote. In most cases, the winner is decided before every state has cast its ballots.

All this is obviously undemocratic, and while I can see an argument that a national primary would be prohibitively expensive or unwieldy, imagine extending that logic to the general election. "To save costs, we're letting Iowa vote three months before New York!" Absurd.

Caucuses

I don't know how these work, and frankly no one should have to in order to make their vote for President heard. I think the GOP has gotten rid of them. Just let people vote like normal, imo.

Delegates and winner-take-all voting

Just as with the electoral college, both parties are won by the candidate with the most delegates, rather than actual votes. The GOP, unlike the Democrats, has some states that are winner take all, skewing results towards those who win narrow victories in these states. Democrats have done away with those, thankfully, but still award delegates on the basis of congressional districts, creating situations where a candidate can win the most votes in a state but not end up with the most delegates.

Feel like there's gotta be a better way to do an election than this.
---

It's because the primaries are not mandated, they're just something the parties do independently as a nomination process and there is no rigid set of rules in place for it
---

eston posted...

It's because the primaries are not mandated, they're just something the parties do independently as a nomination process and there is no rigid set of rules in place for it

I get that, but the process should be better.
---

I wanna go kick George McGovern in the balls

---

There needs to be a national primary day with Ranked Choice voting.
---

There should be 3 national primary days

1st round, top 5 candidates move on.

2nd round, top 2 candidates move on.

3rd round, winner gets nominated and moves on to the general election.
---

reminder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_West_Virginia_Democratic_primary

also, it looks like the GOP in several states are flat out cancelling their primaries for 2020
https://reason.com/2019/09/06/the-gop-deals-with-trump-competition-by-canceling-elections/
---