US Election: To NY and Beyond

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, julynnastarkfan said:

I haven't registered as either a Democrat or a Republican, I live in Missouri and vote for whatever party or candidate that I choose. I don't understand why we still have delegates and the Electoral College. They are antiquated systems that rig the election so that the establishment can determine who gets the nomination, and influence the general election. When the US was first formed delegates were needed/acceptable, but now we should have the people vote to determine the nominess/ winners. 

Delegates are how the parties select their nominees.  That's there call.  Primaries aren't playoffs before the finals.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Anyways, he's an interesting article on the Hillary Victory Fund:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/hillary-clinton-committee-raised-33-million-222044

I'm sure this is technically legal, but it does flout the spirit of campaign finance laws. 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Fez,

Why offer the rational of encouraging participation and then restrict participation.  It's a contradiction.  The State's absolutely have the power to set such restrictions it doesn't mean I have to agree with the rational offered.  This doesn't make sense in my opinion.

Because, as usual, things don't need to be absolutes. It entirely makes sense to want to encourage participation to a certain amount (all eligible party members) and not to the full extent (everyone!). It's the same reason most states don't let children (16 and 17 year olds can vote in some local elections in some states) or incarcerated felons vote in general elections. It was deemed in the public interest to restrict suffrage.

But just because a state doesn't want some people to vote, doesn't mean its a contradiction to encourage participation among all the people it does want to vote.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

Because, as usual, things don't need to be absolutes. It entirely makes sense to want to encourage participation to a certain amount (all eligible party members) and not to the full extent (everyone!). It's the same reason most states don't let children (16 and 17 year olds can vote in some local elections in some states) or incarcerated felons vote in general elections. It was deemed in the public interest to restrict suffrage.

But just because a state doesn't want some people to vote, doesn't mean its a contradiction to encourage participation among all the people it does want to vote.

Fez,

I see your point and we aren't going to agree.

[Bold Barry Whitebeard]

27 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't think so. I'm fairly confident that he was fully aware of his chances against the Clinton juggernaut, but decided to run anyway in order to at least pull her a little bit to the left. He may want to be President (few politicians don't), but I very much doubt that is why he decided to run in the Democratic primary.

If that's true then he's perpetrating fraud on the same scale as the banks he hates so much.

[Weeping Sore]

U.S. Political Party Identification as of 2015:

Democrats 29%

Republicans 26%

Independents 42%

Of course, "identification" isn't the same as "registered as". Nevertheless, closed primaries clearly disenfranchise a large portion of the electorate from deciding who has the chance to be president. With all the practical roadblocks to an independent candidate winning the Presidency in November, we are basically stuck with either a Democrat or Republican. And given that a portion of the money to run the primaries is public, I think it behooves the electorate to put pressure on the parties to reform the process to be more open and democratic.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

WS,

Or, we as the electorate could stop voting for the two major parties.

[Weeping Sore]

Which one do you like?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

WS,

Or, we as the electorate could stop voting for the two major parties.

If you want to achieve this, instead of advocating your previous idea, argue for a single primary ballot that has all the Republican candidates, all the Democratic candidates, and all the candidates of the qualifying third parties. Then, set up some type of system that allows some of the third parties to get equal funding and a place on the debate stage for the general election.

[julynnastarkfan]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Delegates are how the parties select their nominees.  That's there call.  Primaries aren't playoffs before the finals.

That's why I think it should change. One person, one vote regardless of whether it is a primary, caucus or election. I don't want to give anyone the right to decide how I vote but me

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Going off of what Nestor said, if you remove all the barriers besides the constitutional requirements, we'd end up with a popstar as our president, or whomever can most effectively activate their twitter followers. 

Or a reality TV star from one of those awful shows like The Apprentice.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 minutes ago, julynnastarkfan said:

That's why I think it should change. One person, one vote regardless of whether it is a primary, caucus or election. I don't want to give anyone the right to decide how I vote but me

I'm confused, you want primaries to be playoffs before the finals?  How could somone unaffiliated with a party then run for an office that  the major parties hold primaries for?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, mormont said:

Or a reality TV star from one of those awful shows like The Apprentice.

Did you just Robb Stark me?

[lokisnow]

1 hour ago, Weeping Sore said:

U.S. Political Party Identification as of 2015:

Democrats 29%

Republicans 26%

Independents 42%

Of course, "identification" isn't the same as "registered as". Nevertheless, closed primaries clearly disenfranchise a large portion of the electorate from deciding who has the chance to be president. With all the practical roadblocks to an independent candidate winning the Presidency in November, we are basically stuck with either a Democrat or Republican. And given that a portion of the money to run the primaries is public, I think it behooves the electorate to put pressure on the parties to reform the process to be more open and democratic.

 

not necessarily, party percentages are higher in states with closed primaries, and independent percentages are lower, at least in terms of voter registration and declared party preference.

In terms of the mythology of independents, all those numbers mean is that about 90% of the stated 42% vote every election in a pattern that is indistinguishable from a declared partisan. This is usually roughly split down the middle and is because these "independents" adore the illusion that they are not members of a party, even if they always vote identically to a party member. This delusion seems to be about what people want to believe about themselves but factually does not describe how these same people actually behave when voting.

And before Scot bellows, yes, he is in the vaunted and elite realms of a true independent, there's about 4% (or less) of true independents in the national population. Congratulations.

So given each party has a base of about 48% of the electorate, it is far easier to find additional votes for your party amongst the 48% comprising your base than attempting to find voters in the 4% of independents. If you figure a 60% turnout rate in the electorate, that means 29 percent of the population is voting and is your base, and that leaves you searching for additional votes in the remaining 19% of the electorate is not voting and is your base and extremely likely to vote for you if you persuade them to vote.

Additionally, if you figure a 60% turnout rate that means 2.4% of the population who are true independents are voting, that leaves 1.6% of the population who are true independents who you can search in for additional votes. If you succeed in persuading this 1.6% of the population to vote, it is a complete coin flip whether or not they vote for you, you've only got a 50/50 shot of getting their vote (less, since they're much more likely to vote third party) so at best, you can gain 0.8% of the population voting for you if you succeed in mobilizing them.

So, where will a party find more success? In earning additional votes beyond the 60% turnout amongst the 0.8% of the population that are true independents or amongst the 19% of the population that is a party's non-voter base? Btw, a 5% success rate of getting your base non-voters to vote is a larger number of voters than a 100% success rate in getting the 0.8% of the population of true independents available for you to win to cast their ballots for you.

Which is more likely? A 5% success rate amongst people who already like you or a 100% success rate amongst people who generally like you, but form a big part of their identity on sometimes liking you and sometimes disliking you because reasons.

So the whole idea that independents are this magnificent majority/plurality of voters is profoundly incorrect, based on the data we have.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Lokisnow,

That's because you are playing with the defintion of "independent" to eliminate most people who would claim to belong to no party.

[lokisnow]

If we cannot distinguish more than 4% of them from declared partisans as existing in the data then only those 4% are independent, per the data. 

People can say they are independent all they want, but 45% of them are going to vote for democrats every election, and 45% of them are going to vote for republicans every election, just like the declared partisans do.

I'm happy for them to use the label, but in terms of analyzing the election and understanding how people vote, promoting the illusions and delusions of what independents want to believe about themselves only obfuscates our understanding of how the actual outcomes occur. 

How they behave--predictably, every time--not how they say they will behave, is far more significant. 

 

[Kalbear]

Quote

And the existence of the "de facto" structure making party memebership a gateway to political office is a huge problem in my opinion and why I would oppose full public funding of elections.  It would further entrench the existing structure making party membership even more essential to getting into office.

What an odd libertfascist viewpoint. Money is a major problem in elections - so instead of only allowing public funding of election process, we're going to make sure that the government can't control things and instead give everyone all the money we can!

By the way - all campaign funding already has to disclose who it is from and how much it is. The idea that it doesn't right now is one of those cute fictions that misinformed people railing against the system like to trot out. It goes well in hand with the idea that we need to have an open audit of all big banks and mark some as too big to fail banks...which we already do thanks to Dodd-Frank. 

The notion that anyone can vote for a party's choice of who they  want to put forward as a presidential candidate seems so wrong on so many levels, but the big one is this - if you're not a member of the party, why should you have a say in who that group chooses? What value does that provide? This group - which goes for a lot more than the presidential candidate every 4 years  - is something you want no part of, except that you want to say who they should carry forward as their nominee. How does this make any sense at all? Because you travel to New York occasionally should you get a say in who the NY mayor is if you don't live there? 

And yeah, the public pays for a primary. That doesn't mean that the public all gets to participate. Many states consider a primary a public good. They also consider it a public good for the 40% of their population that registers a specific way, only. These are not out of alignment. Anyone who wishes to participate as a member has to register to vote. This has been shown not to be an undue burden on voting rules. This differs from ID in that it costs nothing at all to register. The public pays for schools to exist, for utilities, for airports, for roads and freeways and trains. Everyone who follows the rules can participate - but that doesn't mean everyone participates.

And allowing independents to vote in democrat and republican primaries doesn't help third parties at all. It does exactly the opposite - it buys everyone in and forces everyone essentially to go for one of those two parties (or potentially both, as it did in Ohio). Having more people participate in the entrenched party's primary process doesn't help at all. 

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Lokisnow,

That's because you are playing with the defintion of "independent" to eliminate most people who would claim to belong to no party.

No, he's not. He's stating that those who register as independent vote as reliably for one party as those who register democrat or republican, and it's mostly a personal labeling issue, not an actual 'independent' issue. There are a few exceptions, but not that much of one. 

There's another good article on 538 about independents and why they go for Sanders. For them, the big issue isn't that those independents are ideological as it is that they don't like most partisan politics - but they still vote partisan for the most part. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The notion that anyone can vote for a party's choice of who they  want to put forward as a presidential candidate seems so wrong on so many levels, but the big one is this - if you're not a member of the party, why should you have a say in who that group chooses? 

It's this type of mind set that leaves many Americans feeling like they don't have a voice in an election and are thus forced to pick from the lesser of two evils. We have two parties that have a monopoly on the electoral process and only a small minority of Americans can influence who those two parties nominate. If we open up the process to more people we might get better candidates.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

What an odd libertfascist viewpoint. Money is a major problem in elections - so instead of only allowing public funding of election process, we're going to make sure that the government can't control things and instead give everyone all the money we can!

By the way - all campaign funding already has to disclose who it is from and how much it is. The idea that it doesn't right now is one of those cute fictions that misinformed people railing against the system like to trot out. It goes well in hand with the idea that we need to have an open audit of all big banks and mark some as too big to fail banks...which we already do thanks to Dodd-Frank.

The notion that anyone can vote for a party's choice of who they  want to put forward as a presidential candidate seems so wrong on so many levels, but the big one is this - if you're not a member of the party, why should you have a say in who that group chooses? What value does that provide? This group - which goes for a lot more than the presidential candidate every 4 years  - is something you want no part of, except that you want to say who they should carry forward as their nominee. How does this make any sense at all? Because you travel to New York occasionally should you get a say in who the NY mayor is if you don't live there?

And yeah, the public pays for a primary. That doesn't mean that the public all gets to participate. Many states consider a primary a public good. They also consider it a public good for the 40% of their population that registers a specific way, only. These are not out of alignment. Anyone who wishes to participate as a member has to register to vote. This has been shown not to be an undue burden on voting rules. This differs from ID in that it costs nothing at all to register. The public pays for schools to exist, for utilities, for airports, for roads and freeways and trains. Everyone who follows the rules can participate - but that doesn't mean everyone participates.

And allowing independents to vote in democrat and republican primaries doesn't help third parties at all. It does exactly the opposite - it buys everyone in and forces everyone essentially to go for one of those two parties (or potentially both, as it did in Ohio). Having more people participate in the entrenched party's primary process doesn't help at all.

So, requiring people who want to run for office to use public funding will not be used by the two major parties as another mechanism to ensure they get to choose who may and may not run for office before they attempt to run for office?  They will not do the same thing they have done with ballot access and limit the method and manner to benefit themselves limiting how people who want to run can get access to funds? 
 

I understand the rational behind public funding for closed primaries.  I disagree with it.  It, to me, is absurd to offer public funding to increase participation in the, essentially, straw poll the parties use to help guide who they want to pick to offer as nominees for president but then force people to register for a party before they are allowed to actually participate in the publicily funded election.  It seems like a way to bolster party numbers to imply larger party membership and a post hoc rationalization for the "two party" system.

I understand both you and Fez's point that they want to increase but not fling wide the gates to participation.  I still see those as contradictory goals and see it as unfair to pay for those primaries and then restrict access to participation in the primary.

That said, I'd prefer to do away with primaries altogther as they do create the false impression of a playoff before the big game or that the only real election, the general election, is a runoff (thank you Mormont) and only those who won the primaries are real candidates for the offices they are running for.