Democratize the Primaries

Democracy is the exercise of political power ruled by the people and based on principles of equality and fairness. It is ironic that both major political parties have serious anti-democratic flaws in their presidential primary election processes. After all, we live in a democratic republic and the political parties represent the people, right? Wrong. The parties represent themselves and their members and the primary goal of each party is to gain power; not necessarily with fairness. If the process were done fairly, then each citizen’s would be equal, reflecting the philosophy of one person, one vote.

The Republicans’ Winner-Take-All Flaw
Is the Republicans’ winner-take-all primary fair and equal? A vote is not equal unless it is given the same value as other votes cast in the primary. A national electoral system that arbitrarily ignores large numbers of voters is not fair as it fails to count the a vote if it is cast for any candidate other than the state’s winner. This device allows a regional (state) vote to ignore the individual’s vote for a national office. Votes for candidates should be treated equally in every state, commonwealth and territory throughout the nation. This requires that the number of delegates in a state should be earned proportionately based on the candidate’s proportion or percentage of the votes. In this respect, the Democrat Party’s primaries are sufficiently democratic and avoid the flaw of the Republican’s winner-take-all state primary.

The Democrats’ Super Delegate Flaw
Is the Super Delegate’s delegate status based on fairness or equality? Neither. The delegates are chosen by the party themselves. This is neither fair nor equal and the method fails the democracy test. The Super Delegate exists because in a tight race, the party rulers have decided that they want to make the call. The same rationale exists when a presidential candidate lacks a majority of the electoral votes. In that case, the House of Representatives make s the decision; here it is the party leadership. It is a method of control that values power of fairness and the assumption of superiority over the random objectivity of equality. For these reasons, the Super Delegate concept is anti-democratic.

What Can the Citizens Do About a Party’s Rules

Do Americans have to remain at the mercy of our leading political parties when it comes to the process of selecting the American President? Of course not. If the parties’ fail to democratize their rules for Presidential Primaries by 2011, the people could, at a 2nd Constitutional Convention propose a constitutional amendment to require all presidential candidates to have been selected by an electoral process consistent with proportionate representative democracy. Would the caucus method pass such a test? Let us leave that discussion for another time.

Posted on 4th February at 4:01 pm

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