Can Sanders win New York

Reuters Poll Shows 51% of Americans Think Primary Process is “Rigged” – Here’s Why It Matters

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Reuters/Ipsos recently conducted a poll in which it asked Americans whether the primary process for choosing presidential candidates was rigged. Here’s what they found:

More than half of American voters believe that the system U.S. political parties use to pick their candidates for the White House is “rigged” and more than two-thirds want to see the process changed, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The results echo complaints from Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders that the system is stacked against them in favor of candidates with close ties to their parties – a critique that has triggered a nationwide debate over whether the process is fair.

Trump has repeatedly railed against the rules, at times calling them undemocratic. After the Colorado Republican Party awarded all its delegates to Ted Cruz, for example, Trump lashed out in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, charging “the system is being rigged by party operatives with ‘double-agent’ delegates who reject the decision of voters.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has dismissed Trump’s complaints as “rhetoric” and said the rules would not be changed before the Republican convention in July.

Some 51 percent of likely voters who responded to the April 21-26 online survey said they believed the primary system was “rigged” against some candidates. Some 71 percent of respondents said they would prefer to pick their party’s nominee with a direct vote, cutting out the use of delegates as intermediaries.

The results also showed 27 percent of likely voters did not understand how the primary process works and 44 percent did not understand why delegates were involved in the first place. The responses were about the same for Republicans and Democrats.

Many people will read this and say, so what? Everyone knows it’s rigged? To that I would say, not quite.

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As Expected, New York’s Primary is Already a Pathetic Mess

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Last week, I wrote a post titled, Hillary Clinton Will Win New York, Because New York is Running a Banana Republic Primary. Here’s an excerpt:

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ll know that New Yorkers go to the primary voting booths on April 19th. Unfortunately, only a small sliver of the population will actually be able to vote. First, it’s a closed primary, so you have to be registered as a member of one of the two corrupt political parties in order to participate. As the Guardian recently reported, 27% of New York state’s active voters were not registered in either party as of April 2016, meaning these people will have no say in the primary. Even worse, what about all those residents who aren’t active voters, but would very likely vote in this particular election given the increased turnout seen in other states? They’re iced out as well.

New York has one of the most archaic primaries in the nation. Not only is it one of only 11 states with closed primaries, but if you are a registered voter who wanted to change your party affiliation in order to vote in next week’s primary, you would’ve had to do it by last October. In contrast, if you weren’t yet a registered voter you had until March 25th to register under one of the two parties in order to vote in the primary. So if you live in New York and haven’t registered by now, you can’t vote. 

Well the big day is finally here, and as expected, the primary is already riddled with problems.

First, as reported by the New York Daily News in the article, New York City Primary Voters Outraged by Broken Machines, Closed Polling Places:

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Hillary Clinton Will Win New York, Because New York is Running a Banana Republic Primary

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While it might sound strange, a coronation of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary will mark the end of the party as we know it. There’s been a lot written about the “Sanders surge,” with much of it revolving around Hillary Clinton’s extreme personal weakness as a candidate. While this is indisputable, it’s also a convenient way for the status quo to exempt itself from fault and discount genuine grassroots anger. I’m of the view that Sanders’ support is more about people liking him than them disliking Hillary, particularly when it comes to registered Democrats. He’s not merely seen as the “least bad choice.” People really do like him.

The Sanders appeal is twofold. He is seen as unusually honest and consistent for someone who’s held elected office for much of his life, plus he advocates a refreshingly anti-establishment view on core issues that matter to an increasing number of Americans. These include militarism, Wall Street bailouts, a two-tiered justice system, the prohibitive cost of college education, healthcare insecurity and a “rigged economy.” While Hillary is being forced to pay lip service to these issues, everybody knows she doesn’t mean a word of it. She means it less than Obama meant it in 2008, and Obama really didn’t mean it.

– From the post: It’s Not Just the GOP – The Democratic Party is Also Imploding

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ll know that New Yorkers go to the primary voting booths on April 19th. Unfortunately, only a small sliver of the population will actually be able to vote. First, it’s a closed primary, so you have to be registered as a member of one of the two corrupt political parties in order to participate. As the Guardian recently reported, 27% of New York state’s active voters were not registered in either party as of April 2016, meaning these people will have no say in the primary. Even worse, what about all those residents who aren’t active voters, but would very likely vote in this particular election given the increased turnout seen in other states? They’re iced out as well.

New York has one of the most archaic primaries in the nation. Not only is it one of only 11 states with closed primaries, but if you are a registered voter who wanted to change your party affiliation in order to vote in next week’s primary, you would’ve had to do it by last October. In contrast, if you weren’t yet a registered voter you had until March 25th to register under one of the two parties in order to vote in the primary. So if you live in New York and haven’t registered by now, you can’t vote. 

As the Guardian reports:

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