There has been an onslaught of static regarding the presidential nomination process, particularly on the Republican side. The current frontrunner of the Republican race, Donald Trump, has been the catalyst for the complaints of an apparently “rigged” system and an unfair nomination process, in his words.
Now before we continue any further, let it be clear that this is not an editorial designed to bring down Trump and promote any of the other candidates in the race. As Americans, working for a fair nomination process should be a concern for all of us involved in the election.
However, Trump and his surrogates in the media have ulterior motives when they accuse certain states, such as Colorado, of being rigged in favor of another candidate.
It is not completely out of bounds to consider changes to the nomination process, so Trump, or anyone else for that matter, shouldn’t be discredited if they express legitimate concern for the system being unfair.
The issue with these complaints is that they are categorically false, and if the system actually is rigged, the only person for which it’s rigged is the frontrunner, which just happens to be Donald Trump in this case.
NBC News’ Ari Mebler reported a striking statistic after the Colorado election and Trump’s whining came to the forefront of mainstream campaign coverage. She writes: “Taken together, the data show Trump has been awarded 8 percent more delegates than Cruz for the same rate of voter support.”
The hard details of her findings can be found online and are quite remarkable, but the excerpt shown above is enough to give you the thesis of Mebler’s findings.
To further discredit the Trump campaign’s complaints with Colorado, and the few other states that choose to use the convention nomination system, is that their election is “voteless.” Again, not true.
Colorado awards its delegates as follows. About a month before the Colorado Republican party’s state convention, voters gather in their congressional precincts and vote for who they want to represent them at the state convention. They vote their fellow, regular, every-day citizens to represent them at the conventions.
This year, Colorado reported over 60,000 people that showed up to vote in these precincts. Furthermore, 40 percent of turnout were voters that had never done the process before. The precinct vote is similar to those of caucus primary states.
So if there were over 60,000 voters in Colorado that did, in fact, participate in Colorado, why did Trump say it was a “voterless” election in Colorado? Trump did not even step foot in Colorado. Could it be that he’s whining about the results in Colorado because he lost, and lost resoundingly?
And if there is such worry of corruption and rigging of the system, then why weren’t there any complaints when Trump received about 45 percent of the popular vote of Florida and was awarded 100 percent of the delegates due to Florida’s “winner-takes-all” rules. Trump was perfectly fine with the alleged “rigged” system when it benefited him.
At the end of the day, the states are given the power to choose how they organize and run primaries, caucuses or whatever they choose to do for selecting a candidate. The presidential primary process is a state-by-state process, unlike the general election this fall.
So, do the research on your state’s election rules and judge for yourself whether it’s in need of change or not next time around.
These deceptive claims, poorly masked as righteous protestation of the nomination system and its urgent need for revisement, are not really concerned with fairness at all. If you want real change to the primary process, pay no attention to these propaganda efforts from the Trump campaign or any of his surrogates.
