I have been following the Democratic Party nomination Process for a long time now. And have followed the nomination race between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama. I think what happening between Super Tuesday and now it is clearly hurting the Democratic Party chances of winning the General Election in November.
So, I thought what could've been done to avoid the same situation in the 2012 election and beyond and came up with this solution. It is only my personal opinion only, and could be un-implementable, unpractical, or the cost might not justify the implementation of this solution.
In any case here it is.
Let’s see how the system is designed today:
- Superdelegates Role: It has been a lot of discussion recently about the process itself and the role those superdelegates in deciding the party nominee. No matter what the reason was for creating the superdelegates role in the past, it has no place in today’s politics, and cast a great question mark and shadow over the election process and democracy itself.
- In addition, discussions are now being conducted all over the internet about the wisdom of a caucus instead or a primary. Why should a small percentage of the population have to decide what the general public ought to decide? They might be more enthusiastic about their preferred nominee, but that still does not give them the right to decide for the general population.
- Proportional Delegate allocation: Proportional Delegate allocation is another faulty design. As it has been seen so far in every election that is had dragged the process a long time that is taken to select the party nominee. It does not serve the public well. Seeing what happened in this year nomination process, as well as in previous years, a new solution is warranted and here it is.
The solution for 2012 Democratic Nomination process and beyond:
- Change all caucuses to Primaries. Let the people of the state and territories decide and let their vote count. Don’t limit the election only to those "Active Democrats".
- Allow early voting in every state and the elimination of voting machines that do not produce a paper trail.
- All citizens should be allowed to vote absentee if they so choose.
- Introduce five rotating regional super Tuesdays from Feb. till June. See Regional schedule for more detail. Sen. Nelson (D-FL), Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan and the former secretary of state Worley advocated for a "rotating regional primary system" idea. See Table below.
- Change the numbers of delegate that each state to match the exact number of the Electoral Votes in the general election.
- Change the allocation to "Winner Takes All" at state wide or at the State congressional district level. The first is better.
- Get rid of all super delegates role altogether.
- Each state should enact a law Impose "24 Hours Election Blackout on the media and the Candidates". The blackout out should start 24 hours before the poll closed in the first state and extended until the poll closes in the last state conducting election on that day, learn from FL 2000. It should prevent them from showing anything related to the elections including but not limited to "Campaigning, Exit Polls, Projections, Predicting, etc." Similar to other countries.
The benefits of this solution are:
- The will of the voter is the one who will determine the Democratic Party nominee, not those superdelegates that does a lot of unseen politics and backroom secret deals.
- The nation will have 5 Super Tuesdays to worry about and save the public from the Media bombardments about the election every day from Feb. to June.
- The primaries result will be known within a short period of time, while the caucuses take from 2-3 months.
- The Nominee will be known in May and he/she and the DP has 6 months to concentrate on November General Election.
- The states will have the same exact number of delegates as the general election, which seems more logical.
How to do it:
- The plan should be implemented nation wide within 3 years period.
- Make a schedule to implement this plan no later than Jan. 2009.
- Each state and territory should pass laws to implement this plan, no later than Jun. 2010.
- Void any Federal law that prevents the states from implementing this plan.
- Void any state laws that contradict this plan.
Who will support this plan?
- The US voter who will feel that the process is truly democratic and their vote will not be thrown away by superdelegates backrooms secret deals.
- Independents minded democrat's candidates who will have no chance otherwise, because of the superdelegates role.
Who will oppose this plan?
- The superdelegates that got used to privileges and benefits of influencing the nomination process, which in turns enhance their personal agenda.
- The Media that generates Millions and Millions of dollars from the DP ads stretched from Jan. to Jun. Plus it keep them filling their political programs, instead of the useless stuff that they usually have.
Conclusion:
- The current system of deciding the Democratic Party nominee for the President of the United States is flawed, outdated, and proven to be in chaos state year after year.
- A new overhaul of the system is long overdue and reforms to the system have been circulated year after year with NO one is taking it seriously. It is time to reform this system once and for all.
- The new proposal is fair and gives the decision back to the voter as the constitution and the founding father have envisioned in the beginning.
The proposed five super Tuesdays, one every month starting from Feb. and runs through June, include which state should vote on that day and the number of Electoral Vote the state has (10 States with a total of 108 Electoral Votes with the exception of DC which was added to Super Tuesday II to offset the Electoral Votes.
Let me add something here: Each Super Tuesday will have 10 states, small and large, with a total of 108 delegates each. Therefore insures no one will clinch the nomination from one super Tuesday, and unlikely that anyone will clinch from 2 Super Tuesdays, since the total for both would be 216 delegates. You need 270 to clinch the nomination. This system will guarantee that we will be going to the third Super Tuesday without any advantages to any candidate.
For a list of states in each super Tuesday see The proposal for five super Tuesday.