I have been hearing and reading complaints about our PRIMARY
SYSTEM.
People are bitching that it is UNDEMOCRATIC and somehow
FIXED and CORRUPT. Donald Trump is one such complainer and it is all due to how
IGNORANT many people are about the U.S. primary system of NOMINATING (not
electing) candidates for the office of president of the United States.
The number one fact is that American voters do not nominate
anyone for the office of president, the political parties do.
This is not a Constitutional issue as our Constitution does
not say anything about nominating a candidate; individual political parties
make the rules and on top of that, individual state political parties also add
their own specific rules as to delegate selection and primary or caucus rules.
Political parties invented primaries as a way to see who has
the most popular appeal and who stands the best chance of being elected
president. In the past, they just picked a candidate after debating in
smoke-filled rooms.
Candidates running in primaries or caucuses, garner
delegates according to the votes they receive in the state races. If a
candidate gets a specific number of delegates (as determined by the party) he
or she gets the nomination, if no one gets the required amount of delegates to
automatically win the nomination, the nomination is decided at the party
convention.
Delegates that are “committed” to a specific candidate as
determined by primary votes must vote for that candidate at least on the first
ballot. If no candidate wins the required number of votes on the first ballot,
the delegates are set free to vote for whom they want to.
This is where it gets very interesting as votes can be
bought and sold and we, as American voters, have nothing to do with the process
at this time; it’s all in the hands of party delegates.
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