Here’s an image of a sample ballot from today’s Democratic Primary in Michigan today:
What we have here is a ballot listing Hillary Clinton along with a candidate who has already dropped out (Dodd) and two fringe candidates (Gravel and Kucinich). Obama and Edwards are not on the ballot, and none of the Democrats are campaigning in Michigan (and, of course, MI Dem’s have been stripped of their convention delegation). The reason for all of this? Michigan had the gall to move their primary in violation of the DNC’s calendar.
It strikes me as an unfortunate commentary on American democracy, and on the Democratic Party specifically, that petty disputes over scheduling (and specifically trying to maintain the privileged positions of IA and NH) trump allowing all the citizens of the US a voice in this process. 1
The sample ballots can be found here [PDF].
- The Reps likewise deserve some criticism, but their move to take away only half the delegates did not nullify the contests in states like Wyoming and Florida. Further, the RNC did not go out of their way to nullify those contests, as the DNC did in states that made the move. [↩]
January 15th, 2024 at 9:01 am
It strikes me as an unfortunate commentary on American democracy, and on the Democratic Party specifically, that petty disputes over scheduling (and specifically trying to maintain the privileged positions of IA and NH) trump allowing all the citizens of the US a voice in this process.”
I agree totally. Not only that, but as a country that claims to be the leading light of democracy (usually, not totally without justification), this is incredibly short-sighted of the Dems.
I’ve been trying to picture how we’d view this in another country, particularly in the role of election monitor.
January 15th, 2024 at 2:36 pm
This brings up an interesting question that maybe you could answer Steven.
While I would argue that the caucus system–as deployed in Iowa–is problematic from a democratic theory perspective in many ways (e.g. lack of secret ballot), one thing that is “more” democratic is the approximation of instant run-off.
Thus, if your first choice doesn’t garner 15%, you can switch your vote to a second choice. Therein is the question: since primaries are a creation of the parties, is there anything prohibiting either the Dems or REpubs from having a real instant run-off ballot?
On a side note, regarding the Dems behavior vis a vis the Republicans–aren’t there some primaries where the Republicans give a state’s delegates under a “winner take all” scheme while the Democrats award them proportionally?
I seem to remember that California fits into this category-but I may be wrong.