Is There A Better Way To Pick A Presidential Nominee? | The Last Word | MSNBC

Lily Adams tells Lawrence O'Donnell, "This primary process doesn't just need a makeover, it needs full reconstructive surgery." Yamiche Alcindor also joins the conversation about what the primary process should look like in the future. Aired on 02/27/20.
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Is There A Better Way To Pick A Presidential Nominee? | The Last Word | MSNBC

44 comments

    1. Superdelegates have never actually been a factor in deciding the Democratic nominee since they were created half a century ago, and they’re less of a factor than ever this year because they don’t vote in the first ballot.

    1. Clement Siby

      Why, are you afraid he couldn’t win with ranked choice voting? He could do better, you never know.

    2. @Wendy Pastore He probably would do better, but it wouldn’t change media perception overall. These are the same networks that literally tried to make Iowa more about how impressive it was that Klobuchar came in 3rd than Bernie winning…

  1. How about ask the people and the candidate with the most votes wins. You know, democracy. The thing you try to bring to other countries by throwing bombs on them.

    1. Patrick Mühlbeyer so if another country is being taken over by a group like isis by killing others. We shouldn’t do the same to them. By that thinking Germany would be Europe right now. I agree we shouldn’t fight wars without trying to finish them.

    2. Iceberg Rose we don’t live in a democracy we live in a republic. A democracy does not give the minorities a voice. Our forefathers knew a democracy is like 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner,

    3. @Kenny Cyrus That doesn’t address super delegates overriding the voters, even in a Republic, the super delegate system is BS.

    4. @Kenny Cyrus C’mon Kenny, everyone can see right through you and see why you only went as far back as the rise of ISIS, you did that because if you went back further your argument falls apart and Iceberg Rose’s comment makes sense due to proper context.

    5. The question is, how do you define “the most”? Do you push for a 50+1% majority, or do you accept a plurality? A candidate with a 35% plurality win has 65% of voters voting *against* them and is bound to be unpopular (see Paul LePage in Maine). This is why First Past the Post voting can break down with even just three candidates, let alone more.

  2. I have a suggestion, how about letting the people decide…we vote, they’re counted and he with the most votes, wins!!!!!

    1. irish lady

      That’s pretty much what they’re saying. You have a problem with voters getting to rank their choices or more getting to vote by eliminating the caucuses? Because they were talking about that.

    2. The founding fathers didn’t want the major population centers telling everyone what to do. It’s 50 United Sates that need equal representation. Why pay federal Tax if you have no voice ? Wake up !!!

    3. @Save Greenland That kind of thinking assumes states are monoliths, which simply isn’t true. So-called blue states are often 40% or so rightwing. So-called red-states are often 40% or so leftwing. Rightwingers in California are completely ignored and disenfranchised by the electoral system. Louisiana leftwingers are completely ignored and disenfranchised by the current system. My vote should matter as much as anyone’s, yet it doesn’t because I am in a red state. And before you’re happy about that, remember that all of your rightwing brothers and sisters in California are just as screwed over as I am.

      The truth is that the electoral system is an archaic holdover from the days when America was a Confederacy in all but name. It kind of made sense when the United States was halfway between a country, and an alliance of nation-states. It makes zero sense now, or really any time past the Civil War.

  3. The primaries could be adjusted for several methods of counting. Ranked choice voting (by preference among candidates) could be compared to four other methods (instant runoff, point system and pairwise comparison), to see what candidate has greatest of all these. The first or second choice most likely as well as most favorable among the population. Voter confidence matters, but it may not be well established on the preponderance of issues nationwide. A preference system could show some degree of overall mutual confidence.

  4. So long as we don’t allow comparing hand size in a televised presidential debate. That only works in singles bars.

  5. The rest of the world hearing about the plurality vs majority and Sanders having to win in a landslide but other candidates only barely;
    OH COME THE F**K ON, AMERICA! How did you manage to make these elections even more conplicated and pointless?!?!? Democracy my behind.

    1. Yep. There’s not even a democracy within the DNC party. If you can’t trust each other, even within the party, then what? You’ve made yourself all into enemies even before the presidential election,..
      Keeping my fingers crossed for you though, America 🤞

  6. Have an old fashioned vote.
    Registered Democrats make their cross on a ballot in every state on the same day – a saturday or sunday – in May or June. Most votes wins and if its only by one vote. No caucus shenanigans. No convention shenanigans. None of the ‘Made in ‘Murica to bend and twist Democracy’ shenanigans.

    And then weed out the same shenanigans from the general election, starting with the electoral college, so the US of A can join the ranks of real democracies.

  7. Im an independant voting for progressives like bernie tulsi, and up until recently, ,andrew. I used to be be a democrat, unfortunately i realized these progressives used to be considered democrats until the establishment pushed the party so far to the right i cant tell the difference between them and the republicans.

  8. Yes there is. It’s called a normal direct vote election. You know, those things that almost all other first world democratic countries have. The entire country voting on the same day, one person one vote and the one who gets more votes wins. Crazy concepts like those.

    1. Every state in the US is like small republic. Until you understand that it probably won’t be easy for you to understand why certain issues with voting evolved the way they did.

    2. LOL! Yeah, there are schools and History books in my country too, I know how your union works. But as with many other outdated things in your system and your laws, the fact that something WAS or “evolved” a certain way, doesn’t mean that it always has to be that way forever. Your state governments and your state parties can make those changes if they want to, but they just won’t among many other reasons, to make it impossible for the 2 party system to break. And that is another problematic element of your electoral system BTW, how it prevents the proper representation of the entire political spectrum, unless an “outsider” pulls offf a miracle going against one of the parties’ machine from the inside. The only thing keeping your system from changing by now is the lack of political will by your beloved 2 parties and the same sense of worship for tradition that keeps you anchored to brilliant archaic things like your 2nd amendment.

    3. So unless you grasp some concepts like time and the possibility of change, “it won’t be easy for you to understand why certain issues with voting” CAN CHANGE IN YOUR FUTURE. Your local and federal constitutions can be changed, your parties’ local and national rules can change. So “until you understand that, it won’t be easy for you to understand” that systems can improve.

  9. How about this. People vote. You count the vote. Whoever gets the most votes wins. I think I read about that somewhere.

    1. But how do you equitably define “the most”? Ultimately, you want the winner to be the candidate with the most possible support. A 50+1% threshold seems simple enough, but becomes increasingly unlikely as more candidates are added to the field. So, what do you do? What if, in a large and highly competitive field “the most” is under 30%? Under 20%? It seems highly undemocratic to give a “win” to a candidate with so little support overall, not to mention risky in a primary where the winner of the process will go on to face candidates from other parties later. Do you hold a runoff election with just the two candidates with the highest percentages of the vote? That’s possible in a general election, but not easy to work into the presidential primary schedule. Do you build a runoff into the vote with a preferential voting system so that the lowest-ranking candidates can simply be eliminated and an alternate vote substituted?

    1. Toro Loco joe Biden was arrested with Nelson Mandela. Just ask him. Then imagine Bernie Sanders said that lie and the media just skipped over it

  10. Omg. Bernie IS practical, AND he has heart, AND he stands the best chance of beating trump. Your coverage is pure propaganda.

  11. America bombs countries around the world, saying they are bringing “democracy” to these backwards countries. Bernie Sanders starts winning and they are like – Democracy sucks, lets find another way that helps keep the Billionaires in power.

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