Okay, I’ve had it. I’ve been waiting for someone else to say it, but it seems it has to be me. No one’s “rights” are being taken away due to the primary fracas going on now in the Democratic Party.
The Democrats do have a mess on their hands with the Florida and Michigan primaries. The party is handling it the right way, within their own bylaws and rules. But there seems to be a misunderstanding out among the electorate. Many voters feel slighted, that their “rights” to have their vote counted are being taken away. This is, I fear, a misunderstanding that is being propagated by some who should know better.
There is no “right” to vote in the primary process. The constitution tells us how to select senators, representatives, and the president and vice president. It doesn’t tell us how to select the various parties’ candidates. The constitution doesn’t even mention political parties at all.
I’ve heard too many people exclaim, “I thought we lived in a democracy” when on the subject of Florida and Michigan’s delegates possibly being stripped, or at least half stripped. (Would that be a strip tease?) I’ve also heard many people compare this to the vote counting fowl ups of 2000. Please.
Well, we do live in a democracy, but not a direct one. According to the U.S. Constitution, we do not directly elect anyone but members of the House of Representatives and Senators. At the start, we didn’t even directly elect our Senators. That was left up to the various state legislators to choose. The president and vice president are chosen via delegates, who in turn are chosen by the electorate. It’s fowled up, but it’s what we’ve got until we add another amendment to the Law of the Land.
There are currently two major parties in U.S. politics. They (and all the other parties) have control over how they select their choice for presidential candidates. They could select their candidates in any way they decide to. If the republicans want to choose their next candidate by playing musical chairs or duck duck goose, then they could. If the democrats want to chose their next hopeful by blindfold dart tossing, then so be it. Hell, they could even decide who to choose in the proverbial “smoke filled room”, although I imagine there would be a lot less smoke these days. This irks the Libertarians, no doubt, but that’s another story.
Instead, those parties have chosen to follow, more or less, the process that the nation uses to determine its leader. Both parties make use of delegates. Within each greater party, the state parties have differing ways of choosing their delegates. Some go with primary elections, others go with caucuses. Some states have winner take all, some have proportional apportioning. Some state parties only let party members vote, other throw it open to anyone who wants to participate.
It makes sense that the parties hold election type events to select their candidates. It helps to ensure they have a popular choice that stands at least a small chance of winning in the real election. The campaigning for the hopefuls is also good training for the general election, too. But, and this is important….. they don’t have to do it this way.
Perhaps the state governments should not be involved in primary voting at all. Going to your official polling place to help a Political Party chose its candidate gives the process an air of legality it simply shouldn’t have.
This year, the democrats decided they would move some of their primary election dates around, but not others. The Michigan and Florida factions of the Democratic Party chose to buck the party’s rules and hold their primaries at times other than when the national party wanted them too. They broke the rules. It’s that simple. What the Dem’s decide to do with those votes is up to them. Period.
Should the parties choose their candidates in a different way? Maybe. But, for now at least, if you don’t like the way your party does business, you can do one of three things: Get much more active in your party and try to change the rules, join another party that does things more to your approval, or start your own party and do it however you want.
Either way, educate yourselves about how the process really works. Understand what is what before you start complaining about your rights being revoked.
