Posted on 04/26/2016 9:33:39 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
“not being allowed to vote for a presidential candidate”
Colorado has had the caucus system since 1910, except for 1992-2002.
The Straw Polls taken at caucus had ALWAYS been unbinding beauty contests.
Were you bitching then?
In 2015, long after it was possible to revert to a Primary system, the National GOP announced that IF a state held a straw poll, it WOULD be binding.
This had NOTHING to do with Trump!
Colorado recognized that previous Straw Polls had us selecting candidates who had left the race in 2004 and 2008.
Now that the Straw Poll was to be binding, that would have left Colorado with a meaningless result, going into the Primary.
Thus, we elected not to hold a Straw Poll.
Again, this had NOTHING to do with Trump.
So, where’s the scam?
You are hopeless.
I’m hopeless? Why would you say such a thing?
Ahhhh... so you are pro-blind support. Got it.
I described what IS, and what was possible at the time.
How do you conclude I’m “pro” anything?
Your link lists 3 examples of “cheating”.
The first seems like an innocent misprint of a ballot. Did they even know which delegates would be which numbers when it was printed?
The second doesnt seem like cheating at all. A group of delegates or electors pledged not to vote for Trump and asked others to do the same.
The third has already been debunked. The guy forgot to show up for a mandatory meeting. That’s why his name was removed. This has been the consistent knock on Trump’s ground game organization. It sucks. His people dont know what they are doing.That is why he is losing the delegate game and why you are butthurt.
I guess i’m not understanding your proposed new system. Should we no longer have a convention? Because as long as we have conventions we need human delegates to attend them. If we have human delegates that attend them, they need to be chosen somehow.
I like how Ohio chooses them. They let the winning candidate personally pick them. Kasich will personally choose the 66 human delegates from Ohio that go to the convention. I wish all states did this but they dont. They all have their stated reasons. Some reasons that I have heard is that process is LESS democratic. Instead of letting the people choose who goes to the convention, that right would only be given to party insiders. The convention would become MORE insider and less grassroots.
In any event, different states do it different ways. If a candidate understands these nuances and finds ways to leverage them to give his campaign the best chance, it is not “cheating”. It is winning within the rules.
I guess my resentment is that in this era I believe we need a new definition of the *purpose* for delegates.
Electoral votes were derived from a need for representation of less populated states in a General Election for the president of the United States.
National delegates I believe are like poker chips. They are passed out proportionally or by winner take all to a primary winner and second place, and third place.
However, they are not loyal. They can be wooed, or bought, or bribed, or promised intangibles, or traded by forces other than the loyalty to the candidate they are suppose to represent.
National delegates are truly poker chips, by virtue of the country club they are forced to join (the Party system), or at least declare, in order to cast a damn vote.
You know what I mean?
I know what you mean in as far as it is not a perfect system but I still don’t understand your proposed fix.
The delegates need to have flexibility to exercise their own judgement. Often times there are more than 2 candidates and nobody gets to the magical 50.1%. In that case it is a necessity that some delegates move from their candidate to another one. It is a mathematical imperative.
Would it be wonderful if the only factor that the delegates considered on the second roll call was the interest of the United States???? Sure. But the question is how do you do that? How do you change the human instinct for self benefit?
Personally, I would prefer a MUCH different nominating system. I would like to see a series of 5 or 6 national elections to winnow down the field (think American Idol). I would like to see online balloting where each vote cast requires a $5 donation to the eventual winner. Block chain technology could be used to verify the authenticity of the vote and current ID verification tools could be used to ensure that each person only gets one vote.
In the current election (2016), there will be around 25 million votes cast. If 1/2 of those people are diehards who would pay $5 per vote on a series of 5 votes, that is $312 million dollars. If the remaining 1/2 only voted in the final head to head vote, that would generate another $62 million. That would be a total of $374 million dollars for our candidate to take into the general election without one penny coming from special interests or corporations.
Probably where we differ is on flexibility versus loyalty.
Cruz’ behavior has soured me. I barely see the need for delegates in the first place. That’s my handicap. That delegates can be flexible, to me, means they should be fired. LOL!
But, MOSTLY, I am disgusted that TRUMP supporters were rejected from serving as TRump delegates, and summarily replaced with supporters of his opponent.
The election outcomes should be based on the candidate performance, not the fake replacement delegate performance. Delegates must be loyal to their candidate and stay that way, or demur to someone who will, unless released.
I think I am for a peoples plurality wins and not a delegate majority that upends the people’s vote. That is not democracy.
But this years delegate snatching was expensive for Cruz and it was unnecessary, when compared to the popular vote.
His behavior cost TRUMP a lot of money because of it, so that he also could play the delegate snatch game. Unnecessary, imho. :)
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