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We just need a big state to try it: if California or Texas tries it that rule will get repealed very quickly.

by nebula8804 5y ago

HWR_14 5y ago
I don't see why California or Texas trying it would change anything.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  Either party cannot afford to voluntarily give up so many electoral votes. If I understand it correctly, the # of electoral votes these states have give them enormous sway within the parties.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    That's not how it works. The parties have passed a rule that if California or Texas has one of the first primaries they get changed to 1 electoral vote (well, one delegate, which is the equivalent except there are 10x as many delegates as electors) to decide on the party's nominee. So they would lose what influence they have. The influence of big states within the party because of electoral votes is pretty small. The state's electoral votes are applied by the citizens of the state. I mean, yeah if you could get 50+% of Texas's voters to credibly promise to vote for the presidential candidate of the party that had an earlier Texas primary they would compete hard for it. But in reality, they're going to vote for the republican nominee. Same logic for California but for the democratic nominee.
    - nebula8804 5y ago
      The thing is that this system can be abused in either direction. To promote the candidate that the party leadership wants or to hijack the law and force an important delegate state to lose their influence. Imagine if South Carolina was pushed to this one delegate system in 2020. Bernie Sanders was nearly the nominee and South Carolina began his death spiral. If South Carolina was taken out of play by activists in the state, then either the party would have to forgo its own rules or accept that Bernie would have continued his massive momentum coming out of Nevada. Likewise if on Super Tuesday Buttigieg and Klobachar would not have dropped out at (supposedly) Obama's instance and backed Biden, then Bernie would have emerged much stronger. One way they could have blunted his momentum is if they saw polling early enough that Bernie was going to take a big state like California, we can't rule out the California machine pushing itself to lose the electoral votes in an effort to stop Bernie and then maybe change back its timeline after the election.

We just need a big state to try it: if California or Texas tries it that rule will get repealed very quickly.

HWR_14 5y ago

I don't see why California or Texas trying it would change anything.

nebula8804 5y ago
Either party cannot afford to voluntarily give up so many electoral votes. If I understand it correctly, the # of electoral votes these states have give them enormous sway within the parties.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  That's not how it works. The parties have passed a rule that if California or Texas has one of the first primaries they get changed to 1 electoral vote (well, one delegate, which is the equivalent except there are 10x as many delegates as electors) to decide on the party's nominee. So they would lose what influence they have. The influence of big states within the party because of electoral votes is pretty small. The state's electoral votes are applied by the citizens of the state. I mean, yeah if you could get 50+% of Texas's voters to credibly promise to vote for the presidential candidate of the party that had an earlier Texas primary they would compete hard for it. But in reality, they're going to vote for the republican nominee. Same logic for California but for the democratic nominee.
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    The thing is that this system can be abused in either direction. To promote the candidate that the party leadership wants or to hijack the law and force an important delegate state to lose their influence. Imagine if South Carolina was pushed to this one delegate system in 2020. Bernie Sanders was nearly the nominee and South Carolina began his death spiral. If South Carolina was taken out of play by activists in the state, then either the party would have to forgo its own rules or accept that Bernie would have continued his massive momentum coming out of Nevada. Likewise if on Super Tuesday Buttigieg and Klobachar would not have dropped out at (supposedly) Obama's instance and backed Biden, then Bernie would have emerged much stronger. One way they could have blunted his momentum is if they saw polling early enough that Bernie was going to take a big state like California, we can't rule out the California machine pushing itself to lose the electoral votes in an effort to stop Bernie and then maybe change back its timeline after the election.