Jacksonville Jaguars Fan Forums

(04-14-2022, 10:44 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2022, 09:33 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]I'm open to other voting methods, especially in the primaries. I am not open to changing our federal electoral system. Here's a compromise. Party primaries get standardized rules that binds their convention to choose the party winner as decided by the people. Primaries adopt a ranked choice style. Candidates are ranked and the person with the most votes wins. For the national election, we follow the constitution and use only the nominees from parties that are recognized in at least 3/4s of the states. That seems simple enough.

But does the government actually have a constitutional right to regulate how political parties choose their candidates?  Here is an interesting article on the subject, dealing with state regulation of political parties.  I'm not sure if the federal government has that right, though.  

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0...20imposed.

By the way, if the Republicans had had ranked choice voting, I don't think Trump would have gotten the nomination in 2016.

The Federal government (US Congress) has broad constitutional authority to change many aspects of the nominating and election process for US house and US senate.  The Federal government could require open primaries, no primaries, multi-seat districts and many other things for those races.

The Federal government (here I mean Congress and the Courts) has very little power to alter election procedures for President or for state legislators. Those are handled at the state level mostly.

As for the Presidential primaries, they are basically unregulatable.  The states set up their own primary elections, but the national parties are free to ignore those election results and even their own rules as they settle on a nominee.  The states are then each free to ignore that choice and place and place other nominees from that party on the ballot if their law allows for it.  The amount of unwritten rules, goodwill, and tradition that is baked into the current nominating system boggles the mind.  

To the point, I agree with Marty that Trump would not have won the 2016 nomination under most other sets of rules.  Florida's primary in particular was decisive.  The state legislature determined that it should be on a certain day early in the national process, with only registered republicans voting.  Then the state party, RPOF, determined it should be winner-take-all.  The legislature and the party then agreed, without discussion, that the voters should be allowed to pick one candidate only.  There was no discussion because "we've always done it this way" but the truth is, if RPOF had requested that ballots with multiple candidates selected be counted, the legislature and supervisors of elections would have gladly obliged.  Ranked choice is a bigger ask because that's more than just checking a box, but approval voting could have been done.  If any of the players had made different choices on these issues, Trump may not have won.

Republican party rules for presidential nominations are conducive to giving voters more choices.  The delegates are typically winner take all by state or winner take all by congressional district.  Approval voting and ranked choice voting are both good at picking a single winner.  If one state wants to change its nominating process, they have a lot of latitude under GOP rules.

Democratic party rules for presidential nominations are much more problematic.  For them, delegates are always pledged proportionally to the statewide results.  It becomes very difficult to figure out how do assign delegates if each voter might have picked or ranked multiple candidates.

And it would be odd, and seem unfair and illegitimate, if in the 2024 primaries Republican party voters got to pick or rank multiple candidates while Democratic party voters were still under "choose one" rules.

I think we have major deficiencies in how we select candidates for all offices, but focusing on presidential nominations in particular, an interstate compact seems like the only plausible way for state governments to force the national parties to change their process.

(04-14-2022, 10:44 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-13-2022, 09:33 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]I'm open to other voting methods, especially in the primaries. I am not open to changing our federal electoral system. Here's a compromise. Party primaries get standardized rules that binds their convention to choose the party winner as decided by the people. Primaries adopt a ranked choice style. Candidates are ranked and the person with the most votes wins. For the national election, we follow the constitution and use only the nominees from parties that are recognized in at least 3/4s of the states. That seems simple enough.

But does the government actually have a constitutional right to regulate how political parties choose their candidates?  Here is an interesting article on the subject, dealing with state regulation of political parties.  I'm not sure if the federal government has that right, though.  

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0...20imposed.

By the way, if the Republicans had had ranked choice voting, I don't think Trump would have gotten the nomination in 2016.

That would have been a good thing. I think Rand Paul would have been the choice, who is probably one of the better thinkers in DC. 

As to your question, no, it doesn't. This is why I said I would change a lot about the way we vote. It would be very difficult to make changes through the proper channels. Part of the problem exists because our founders saw our states as independent nations that were forming a union. They didn't see it as one, federalized country, which is what it became after the civil war. Because of this, I think it leaves the state voting mechanisms exploitable.

(04-14-2022, 12:50 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-14-2022, 10:44 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: [ -> ]But does the government actually have a constitutional right to regulate how political parties choose their candidates?  Here is an interesting article on the subject, dealing with state regulation of political parties.  I'm not sure if the federal government has that right, though.  

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0...20imposed.

By the way, if the Republicans had had ranked choice voting, I don't think Trump would have gotten the nomination in 2016.

That would have been a good thing. I think Rand Paul would have been the choice, who is probably one of the better thinkers in DC. 

As to your question, no, it doesn't. This is why I said I would change a lot about the way we vote. It would be very difficult to make changes through the proper channels. Part of the problem exists because our founders saw our states as independent nations that were forming a union. They didn't see it as one, federalized country, which is what it became after the civil war. Because of this, I think it leaves the state voting mechanisms exploitable.

Ranked choice voting can be counted two ways. Condorcet and Instant Runoff.

In instant Runoff, the candidate with the lowest number of first choice votes is eliminated, and those votes get distributed to remaining candidates based on the second or third preference, etc.  Rand Paul would not have gotten enough first choice votes to be a factor in that counting system.  It would have gone to Cruz, Rubio, or Kasich, probably Cruz.  Paul would have been eliminated early.

Instant Runoff is similar to how the primaries work today, if you imagine that the early states are the early rounds of counting, then candidates drop out, and their supporters in later states go to second and thirds choice candidates instead  

With a Condorcet counting method, you use the rankings to create hypothetical 1 on 1 matchups.  The candidate that wins the most 1 on 1 matchups is the winner.  You don't need to have the most first choice votes, in fact you might have very few, as long as you have plenty of 2nd and 3rd choice votes you can win.
Paul might have pulled that off, but Cruz and Rubio seem more likely to be the Condorcet winner, to me.

Either way, I think we all need to get over our scruples and reverence for the founders a little bit.  Something as important as selecting the right candidate for a party should not be monopolized by unaccountable party officials

The founders had the right idea with a republic and the electorate. They just couldn't enact state laws because they saw them as independent nations. That is probably where we need to change tack.

(04-14-2022, 07:58 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]The founders had the right idea with a republic and the electorate. They just couldn't enact state laws because they saw them as independent nations. That is probably where we need to change tack.

They had the right idea with a lot of stuff. With states being mini republics, a Senate where states are equal and can veto federal appointments, a House based on population, the ability to add states to the union, checks and balances, many other things.  

They went terribly wrong with making a process for selecting a President.  The original article II couldn't handle a contested election at all, and Amendment 12's process falls apart if there are more than two strong candidates.  The two national parties, corrupt and unaccountable though they are, are basically a beneficial conspiracy to prevent a 3-way Presidential election from occuring.  Such an election would likely go to the House, which would be a real crisis of legitimacy.

The other area where the founders clearly lacked foresight is entrusting state legislatures with their own rules of election and districts, and trusting US Congress with its own rules of election.  Just like other aspects of governing, there needs to be a check or balance from another branch or else abuse will be frequent.  And it is. Congress and courts at the federal level have a clear power in the 14th and 15th amendment to act against bad districts and bad procedures but only if the impact falls on racial lines. The federal courts have been petitioned to interpret the 14th more broadly such that it strikes down partisan gerrymandering, and they should, but Kavanaugh disagreed.

Again, we need to be able to have these conversations realistically.  People today are tempted one-up each other in a reinforcing spiral that either deifies the founders as demigods, or villifies them as racists.  We need to take a middle path and see them as men only, who did some things well, and some things poorly.

And yes.  We need to change tack.  We need to work on state laws that will create an interstate compact or something similar.

Them and Us by Bad Religion

"Despite that he saw blatant similarity.
He struggled to find a distinctive moiety
All he found was vulgar superficiality
But he focused it to sharpness
And shared it with the others
It signified his anger and his misery
Them and us
Lobbying determined through a mire of disbelievers
Them and us
Dire perpetuation and incongruous insistence
That there really is a difference
Between them and us
Hate is a simple manifestation
Of the deep seated self directed frustration
All it does is promote fear and constrenation
It's the inability
To justify the enemy
And it fills us all with trepidation
Them and us
Bending the significance to match a whimsied fable
Them and us
Tumult for the ignorant and purpose for the violence
A confused loose alliance forming
Them and us
And I heard him say
We can take them all (we can take them all)
We can take them all, thats what he said
We can take them all
But he didn't know who we were
And he didn't know who they were.
And there wasn't any reason or
Motive, or value, to his story,
Just allegory, imitation glory,
And a desperate feeble search for a friend
Them and us
Lobbying determined through a mire of disbelievers
Them and us
Dire perpetuation and incongruous insistence
Tumult for the ignorant and purpose for the violence
A confused loose alliance forming
Them and us
We can take them all (we can take them all)"

Dang, I haven't thought about that band in years. I used to listen to them all the time. They were definitely political.

(04-14-2022, 10:16 AM)TrivialPursuit Wrote: [ -> ]An update...

I'm currently lugging the guillotine to DC. I should have just disassembled it and reassembled it there, but dammit, once a choice has been made it must be followed through.

The carriage's wheel and axel broke a few miles back... it's gonna take a few weeks but I'll get there. Anyone ready to carry through with my threat? We can meet up!

Lol. Dude you are twisted.