What I don’t understand is how this election can be anybody’s idea of fair. I understand there are still 14 states that haven’t even held their primaries yet—that means people in those states haven’t had a chance to vote yet-—???How can the primary season be OVER???? How can this be fair-—and since when did we start running an election this way? Doesn’t anybody see a problem here??? I would think there would be enough intelligence in this country to see a HUGE problem here...we can’t go on this way.
How does a huge state like Calif., for example, wind up almost dead last in the lineup of primaries, when things
are pretty much decided anyway?
The idea is to string out the process and do it bit by bit.
Can’t we have just a few weeks of regional primaries instead
of making it from early Jan. till June? The media would hate it of course.
>>since when did we start running an election this way?
It’s been like this the past few times. I wonder if the NH primary, etc., used to maybe be in March or something and it just kept getting pushed earlier and earlier. Other states also wanted to be early. So next time the NH
primary may be before Christmas. And the last one is
around the summer solstice. Not right.
How old are you? Presidential primaries have always been settled by April. I've lived in PA 42 years and have never voted in a presidential primary that mattered.
It's not new.
Fair? That's a different question.
This gets on my nerves too. A significant amount of voters are disenfranchised because the nominee is usually already chosen by the time the primaries roll around to them. People in places like Texas and California basically have no say in who our nominees are and there is no reason for this.
I have been advocating for years that we have three "national" primary elections in years we are choosing a president. I put "national" in quotes because what I am really advocating is 50 separate state primaries held three times on the same day.
For example, the first primary should be held in early February. This primary is non-binding. Those who are able to garner 10% or more of the delegates move on to the second primary. This will weed out the "fringe" candidates. Also, all the delegates are now released for the second primary. Ideally, 3-5 candidates from will move on.
The second "national" primary should be held in mid April. This will give the remaining candidates about 10 weeks to campaign. In this primary, 50% of the delegates in each state will be up for grabs and so long as a candidate wins at least 25% of the vote in a given state, they will be apportioned delegates on a proportional basis and they will be binding - that is to say that the candidates will take these delegates to the convention. Any delegates receiving less than 25% in a given primary will in effect be "washed out" and will get nothing for that state. This will ideally narrow the field to 2-3 candidates as those with a very low total of delegates will likely run out of money and drop out at this stage.
This will set us up for the third and final primary (to be held in June) in which the other 50% of the available delegates will be awarded proportionally. Again, a candidate needs to get at least 25% of the vote in a given state to be awarded delegates. By now, we should have produced a candidate with enough delegates to be nominated at the convention.
I know I probably made this sound more complicated than it really is but this is really an elegant way to choose a nominee while giving every voter in the country an equal say in the process.