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It’s Trump v Biden again. Why were there no better options for voters?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Eclectic, Mar 9, 2024.

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  1. perotista

    perotista Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You can thank the DNC and Democratic Party leaders for Biden. The democratic base wanted someone other than Biden. But the DNC and Democratic Party leaders used all the power available to them, arm twisting and other shenanigans to ensure Biden didn’t have a prominent democrat challenger. Simply put, the DNC and Democratic Party leaders chose Biden, not the democratic party’s base.


    The republicans were just the opposite, the RNC and Republican Party leaders preferred someone other than Trump as their nominee. But the GOP base wanted Trump. The GOP base won out over the RNC and Republican Party leaders whereas the DNC and Democratic Party leaders won out over the Democratic base basically by not allowing and preventing any challengers to challenge Biden.


    I don’t agree with what the DNC and Democratic Party leaders did, but I understand it looking back on history. I’m sure the DNC and Democratic Party leaders knew of the history of a sitting president being challenged within its own party. Estes Kefauver challenged Truman in 1952, Truman withdrew, Eisenhower defeated Stevenson in the general. 1968 McCarthy challenged LBJ, LBJ withdrew, Nixon Defeated Humphrey in the general. 1976 Reagan challenged Ford, Ford survived, Carter defeated Ford in the general. 1980 Ted Kennedy challenged Carter, Carter survived, Reagan defeated Carter in the general. 1992, Buchanan challenged G.H.W. Bush, Bush survived, Bill Clinton defeated Bush in the general. This is the history of a sitting president being challenged within his own party. This is why I think the DNC and Democratic Party leaders did all they could to ensure Biden went unchallenged in the primaries.
     
    perotista, Mar 10, 2024
    #51
  2. Eclectic

    Eclectic Newly Registered

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    I think that the primary systems and the party systems are in more need of reform than the Electoral College. I don't really understand how the Republican and Democratic Parties work as partly governmental and partly independent organizations. I was once elected to the very bottom rung of one of them, had a small peek at how the lower ranks worked, and didn't like what I saw.

    How candidates are chose for primaries, how they get on the ballot, and how they get supported or not by the party are all things that need a lot of reform from local municipalities on up. Most areas are dominated by one party or the other. So advancing politically means climbing the greasy pole of single-party politics or having enough money to buy your way in at the higher levels. The long shot method is the easier climb up the non-dominant party in an area that switches from one party to another.
     
    Eclectic, Mar 10, 2024
    #52
  3. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There's nothing preventing individual states from implementing ranked voting when it comes to deciding who that state will cast its vote for in the electoral college.

    But that of course does not really entirely address the problem.

    Probably another thing they would have to do is hold a runoff election in the Electoral College itself. So first they might vote for 2 candidates, and then a second election round would be held, to decide between the two of them.
    Each elector would have been instructed by their state how to vote.

    Of course, with the way the whole state elections and electoral college system is set up, that would make things very complicated. But it is possible.

    There might also be some issues in being able to guarantee that the electors would vote the way they were ordered to by the state. Normally when the state wants to send a vote for a particular candidate they select electors who are known to support that candidate. But when those candidates might be required to support an alternate candidate, it could be more challenging to ensure they will vote the correct way.

    Then we could also discuss how the idea of ranked voting could apply to Party selection for nominee. Right now how the system works is the elections within the first few states establish which two candidates are seen as the most electable, so as the Party vote is carried out in other states, almost all the votes are only cast for the two leading candidates, so Party voters do not risk wasting their votes.
    Sometimes which one or two states are the first can end up deciding who the nominee will be. So this can be a way for political parties to manipulate the selection of nominee.

    All probably too complicated for most casual readers in this thread to wrap their brain around.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2024
    kazenatsu, Mar 10, 2024
    #53
  4. Eclectic

    Eclectic Newly Registered

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    If the electoral college votes received from the states do not result in 270 votes for a President and 270 votes for a Vice President, then there are specific procedures for the House to elect a President from the top 3 vote getters and for the Senate to elect a Vice President similarly.

    Choosing a President: How the Electoral College Works
    https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/fall/electoral-college.html
     
    Eclectic, Mar 10, 2024
    #54
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That is still not really equivalent (on the whole) to a ranked voting system, however.

    It's quite rare for the leading candidate not to end up getting the minimum necessary votes.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2024
    kazenatsu, Mar 10, 2024
    #55
  6. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    I'd agree with you that that would be a fair and fairly clean way of setting things up assuming there were enough support for it. Because, as you alluded to, doing things that way would give ultimate authority to the people above and to the exclusion of all else as well as making campaigning for any individual or group of voters no more or less important to candidates than any other, which imo is how things ought to be as far as maximizing democracy goes. However, most Americans these days tend to be somewhat resistant to the idea of modern day constitutional amendments, which is what I believe that would take, and there also seems to be a pretty wide spread of Americans who'd prefer it if we held on to our federalistic Electoral College set up. Given that, I feel like keeping all that in place and setting up a Ranked Voting system alongside the Electoral College is worthy of serious consideration. Since were it to be set up correctly, from an outcome perspective it would really be no different as far as the democratic benefit provided. And I'd say it would be much preferable to what we have today. So it kind of comes down to what's the easier lift, what will have more support to the point of being likely to clear resistance?

    ...at least when it comes to elections below the presidential level the question becomes much easier. Perhaps a Ranked Voting system at one level can go a long ways to convincing folks of it's efficacy for other levels. And perhaps even at the presidential level, a gradual move toward Ranked Voting might help many to see the wisdom in your suggestion. But (like the election system itself) it shouldn't ever be an all or nothing proposition imo. My 2-cents anyway...

    When it comes to how party primary systems factor into things, I'd say that that is largely separate from a consideration of Ranked Voting in a more general sense. Especially since, if we were to establish ranked systems of voting for general elections and such, then party primaries would largely become a lot less relevant in the grand scheme of things. The parties could still have them of course for selecting who they want to pick to represent them within the ranked generals, but candidates of course would be free under a ranked system to operate completely outside of those party primary systems, without worrying about things like spoilers, tactical voting, or main party candidates having unfair systemic advantages in those elections. The phenominon Eclectic pointed out of candidates being more or less required to work their way up through one of the major parties in order to advance politically wouldn't be as big a thing if we were to set up Ranked Voting in the generals.

    All that being said... if I were to advise any political parties on how their primary election systems ought to be set up, I'd certainly suggest to them that they ought to consider using Ranked Voting, as doing so would not only lead to party candidates that were more representative of the party as a whole, as opposed to just being representative of one faction of the party or another,... I believe that doing so would over time also make both your party and your candidates a lot more attractive to folks from outside the party; as the prospect of being able to have a moderating force on things, however small, is a pretty decent incentive for one to want to join a party, in comparison to joining a typical Plurality-based party where one is likely to simply get bowled over politically-speaking by the pre-existing party majority. But again, that's just my 2-cents on the matter.

    -Meta
     
    Meta777, Mar 15, 2024
    #56
  7. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    What you're describing sounds similar to option 4 from the post you quoted. Am I right?
    http://politicalforum.com/index.php?goto/post&id=1074699003#post-1074699003

    Except if we were to have electors go through with their own ranked vote, we wouldn't need to fiddle around with having them engage in separate rounds of runoff elections. I think doing it like that would reduce the complexity, or at least take down process time. Would still be more complex than going with option 5 or 6, but I think a little bit of added complexity is to be expected when setting up a Ranked system while simultaneously maintaining the Electoral College, and it's worth it in the end for the benefit returned.

    You speak of Faithless Electors?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

    Most states seem to have laws on the books detailing how to deal with that sort of thing.
    I don't think it would be any different under a Ranked Voting system really, only that the pledges taken by electors might include ranking order as opposed to just a single candidate.

    -Meta
     
    Meta777, Mar 15, 2024
    #57
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