A Flawed System

[octobit]

I have been what I would deem an obsessive lurker on Democratic Underground for a number of years now. Two things have caused me to de-lurk: my close friend making The Greatest Page (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3189038) and a desire to see a different kind of dialogue within the GD: P section of DU.

I was a Hillary Clinton supporter. By this I do not mean that I no longer support Hillary, but instead that I voted to elect to her to the senate. I say "was" because I did not vote in the primary for my state, but will fervently support whoever is the Democratic nominee. I hope that my fellow DU'ers will also support whoever we nominate for the general election. In addition, I am looking forward to having a clear nominee as that will put an end to both Obama and Clinton supporters attacking each other to the degree that I have seen in this forum. I know not all Clinton supporters trash Obama, and that not all Obama supporters trash Clinton, but at the very least we are faced with an incredibly vocal minority. Knowing that DU rules do not allow posters to talk bad about whoever is nominated, once they are nominated, why don't we try and begin that process by being civil to each other and to both candidates, as it is something we should do and will have to do.

That being said, I have a few issues to raise:

A lot of people hear have been expressing dissatisfaction with how the primaries and caucuses work and how these different systems can be gamed. For now, we just need to accept that these are the way they are. However, I hope that this will lead to us working towards reforming those systems. Primaries, Caucuses, and Super Delegates are all incredibly flawed. We should add them to our list along with the Electoral College in terms of what needs to be reformed. Voting reform is necessary for our democracy to continue. We must look not just at the general election and black box voting, but at all aspects of our election systems, from the top to the bottom and everything in between. If you are unhappy that these systems are not being fair to your candidate, then work hard to reform them. I think no matter what the results are and what candidate you are for, that this can be something that we can all work together to fix.

Florida and Michigan. I do not believe these states can have their delegates seated as things currently stand. I honestly do not know what the solution is, nor do I believe for this primary that there is any truly fair solution. If we are to consider seating delegates from these states, I feel that in some way the citizens of these states must be given an opportunity to vote again. You can't tell people that they shouldn't vote as there vote will not count and later count the votes of those who do. I want to see these states have their delegates seated, but simply seating them or not seating them at this point will be a blow to our democracy. I honestly don't know what a solution should be, but I think we must recognize that no matter what, this can not be allowed to happen again.

Super Delegates. If they are not there to decide a close race, then why are they there? Either we accept that this is the purpose of the super delegates and acknowledge their freedom to vote as they choose (whether that means following their constituents or voting their preference) or we must actively work to remove the super delegates from future primary processes. Super Delegates are basically heavily weighted tie breakers. We have to accept that for now and if we are uncomfortable with this, then we have to work to reform this.

I feel I learn something new about how voting works in America every day from following this primary, and every day I see something new that must be reformed. For now, we must accept the incredible flaws of our system, and pledge no matter the outcome to all come together and work on reforming all aspects of our election process. We must remember that even though we all have our differences, we have a lot more in common, and that is our strength.

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Hopefully we can all agree with what is above that line. No matter who is nominated, we need to work on all aspects of election reform as well as making sure that our nominee lives up to the democracy that our country used to be known for. I will happily vote for and support 100% whoever the nominee might be. That being said .....


From following the news and primary process so far, I believe Obama will end up being the Democratic nominee, and that the general election will not be decided by race or gender, but instead by age.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[Window]

1. Excellent post.

Welcome to DU.



Peace:thumbsup: