The Nevada primary debate raised the issue of whether the candidate with the most pledged delegates should get the nomination. Here are some general ideas about the fairest way to do things.
The primary should be decided by pledged delegates, who are democratically chosen by voters. Decision by unelected superdelegates undermines the legitimacy of the process, disrupting the party coalition. Even if a completely unbreakable deadlock with pledged delegates somehow occurred, I might rather decide the nomination by a game of chance than have superdelegates swoop in. Better for Democrats to resent the Fates than to resent each other.
If you get more than half the pledged delegates, you should win. Someone could complain if they fell under the 15% threshold for delegates in many states, won other states big, and thus ended up down 51-49 in delegates despite receiving a majority of the votes. But it's hard to assess caucus and primary votes in a unified way, so we're probably stuck using delegate majorities as proxies for vote majorities.
Having the most pledged delegates shouldn't necessarily make someone the winner. In a 5-way race that ends up 22-21-20-19-18, the candidate with 22% shouldn't necessarily win. If all the other candidates are of a single ideological bloc and are ready to band together behind the candidate with 21%, that candidate should win, as they lead the bloc that won 78-22. (Note to Bloomberg: no buying delegates.)
In the future, it would be great for Democrats to set up some other voting system like IRV or approval voting. These systems are much better at representing voter preferences in multicandidate elections. They allow voters to rank candidates or choose more than one. (I voted for Warren; under IRV I would have ranked Sanders second; under approval voting I probably would have also approved Sanders.) The party could also do away with delegates and go straight to these nice IRV or approval-voting ballots.
Probably the best way to approximate those systems within the present mess is to let delegates reassemble into coalitions, guided by the candidate to whom they're pledged. That way, candidates from similar ideological blocs can combine their power. A majority wins, and if nobody has a majority, try to negotiate into a majority coalition. This system gets the right results in the majority and 22-21-20-19-18 cases by approximating the structures of these better voting systems.
I hope (and believe) one candidate will get a majority of pledged delegates. But in a mess, I think the right principles are: pledged delegates decide, you need 50%+ to win, you can get there by negotiating, Bloomberg can't buy delegates, and our dreams of better voting systems should guide our reasoning about fairness.
This may have been somewhat dense. So to symbolize the value of these principles to the Democratic Party, I'll just have a picture of a baby donkey romping through a field of flowers.
The primary should be decided by pledged delegates, who are democratically chosen by voters. Decision by unelected superdelegates undermines the legitimacy of the process, disrupting the party coalition. Even if a completely unbreakable deadlock with pledged delegates somehow occurred, I might rather decide the nomination by a game of chance than have superdelegates swoop in. Better for Democrats to resent the Fates than to resent each other.
If you get more than half the pledged delegates, you should win. Someone could complain if they fell under the 15% threshold for delegates in many states, won other states big, and thus ended up down 51-49 in delegates despite receiving a majority of the votes. But it's hard to assess caucus and primary votes in a unified way, so we're probably stuck using delegate majorities as proxies for vote majorities.
Having the most pledged delegates shouldn't necessarily make someone the winner. In a 5-way race that ends up 22-21-20-19-18, the candidate with 22% shouldn't necessarily win. If all the other candidates are of a single ideological bloc and are ready to band together behind the candidate with 21%, that candidate should win, as they lead the bloc that won 78-22. (Note to Bloomberg: no buying delegates.)
In the future, it would be great for Democrats to set up some other voting system like IRV or approval voting. These systems are much better at representing voter preferences in multicandidate elections. They allow voters to rank candidates or choose more than one. (I voted for Warren; under IRV I would have ranked Sanders second; under approval voting I probably would have also approved Sanders.) The party could also do away with delegates and go straight to these nice IRV or approval-voting ballots.
Probably the best way to approximate those systems within the present mess is to let delegates reassemble into coalitions, guided by the candidate to whom they're pledged. That way, candidates from similar ideological blocs can combine their power. A majority wins, and if nobody has a majority, try to negotiate into a majority coalition. This system gets the right results in the majority and 22-21-20-19-18 cases by approximating the structures of these better voting systems.
I hope (and believe) one candidate will get a majority of pledged delegates. But in a mess, I think the right principles are: pledged delegates decide, you need 50%+ to win, you can get there by negotiating, Bloomberg can't buy delegates, and our dreams of better voting systems should guide our reasoning about fairness.
This may have been somewhat dense. So to symbolize the value of these principles to the Democratic Party, I'll just have a picture of a baby donkey romping through a field of flowers.
