Maximized Disenfranchisement in Most of the Republican Primaries

Maximized Disenfranchisement in Most of the Republican Primaries

In order to speed to the early selection of the Republican nominee, 80% of the Republican delegates are in primaries where winner-take-all, or winner-take-most. In winner-take-all, just a plurality takes all the delegates. In winner-take-most, a majority over 50% takes the at-large delegates, and in a district, takes the district. In these cases, voters who voted for anyone but the winner are completely disenfranchised.

An unforeseen consequence of this, is that near the end of the primary season, where almost all primaries in front of the candidates are the winner-take-all, with a few winner-take-most, since the secondary candidates cannot gain anything, their funding and supporters vanish. Thus they drop out, and the leading Trump card takes all by forfeiture.

The other unplanned consequence, is that any attempt to stop the early favorite celebrity candidate is now doomed to defeat. As Trump says, “live with it”.

Even in the proportional primaries, with only 3 delegates to a district, the split has to start at 2-1. So even with an almost two way tie, instead of splitting the delegates 50-50, they already start with and enormous split of 67% to 33%, a 33% split. Again, speed, at the cost of carrying and second place candidate. Of course the presence of three candidates, where the third could only carry his home state, did not help the second place candidate to compete.

In the winner-take-most with the leader under 50%, the split was 2-1 with the second place candidate, with no take for the third candidate.

Also unforeseen, was that Trump took the five week selection lead over Clinton, and blew it away with controversy and little clarity of presidential plans.

After the problems Gov. Romney had in 2012, the Republicans designed this new accelerated system, with accompanying disenfranchisement. It was a case of planning of preparing to fight the last war better, not realizing that the next war would be unlike the last one and mainly unpredictable. The best system is to bring back proportional voting to treat all candidates and voters equally.

The other annoying thing from the view of the voters in the rest of the country, is to get rid of the four February advantaged states with few delegates that get six months of solid campaigning to their special interests. Start out on Super Tuesday in March with primaries from many states in all parts of the country to spread around the campaigning and issues. So let it be written, so let it be done.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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