Does Your Vote Really Matter?

Originally from my blog WindUpRubberFinger 04/01/16

Many people feel like voting is just another way of throwing your "two cents" in; they might be right, it appears that your vote matters very little. In fact some people including many Bernie Sanders voters are starting to think that the process is rigged. Check this out. Those voters "feeling the bern" might not be too far from the truth.

At least a half-dozen Democratic superdelegates in New York State who have already decided to support Hillary Clinton said Tuesday they would maintain their allegiance to her — regardless of the results of the Empire State’s primary.

Even if Sanders were to win the April 19 New York presidential contest, when a whopping 247 delegates are at stake, every single New York superdelegate reached by the Daily News said they would never back the Vermont senator.

Right now, if Sanders had the superdelegate votes that Clinton currently has, he’d be winning handily, with 1,444 total delegates to Clinton’s 1,272.

Currently, Clinton has 1,712, total delegates, compared with 1,004 for Sanders. Excluding superdelegates, however, Clinton’s lead is only 1,243 to 975 — a narrower difference that has prompted the Sanders campaign to say it will try to convince many superdelegates to jump ship and support him.

I have news for you, the Sanders people are 100% right. IT IS RIGGED. Harry Reid said as much.

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC: There are a lot of concerns among people about the role of the super delegates. Here you've got Hillary Clinton getting clobbered in New Hampshire, 22-point landslide by Bernie Sanders, and yet, they divided the delegates 15-15 because she had so many super delegates, so many members of Congress and Senators and the governor of course. Is that a fair process?

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): Well, the process was totally unfair before -- eight years ago. Eight years ago, I looked at this and I thought, how in the world could we have the future of this country be dependent on Iowa, which is 93% white, and we have New Hampshire which is 97% white, no diversity, no diversity in Iowa. And have the final decision made as to who is going to be the president of the United States based on those two states, it was wrong. We now have Nevada and South Carolina before we get into the rest of the country as to who's chosen where.

This is better, so much better than it was before. So, think what it would be if this campaign didn't go to Nevada and South Carolina. It was just determined by what happened in Iowa, she won, and you just indicated that even though he won the election by a big margin in New Hampshire, the delegates came out even. It was not a good system. It's getting better.

Another way to look at what Reid said is that votes don't matter in the first two states. His argument about race doesn't make much sense either because all of the Democratic presidential nominees are white.

The truth is that the system is rigged so that the party can get whoever they want in; the voters be damned. Hillary Clinton is not very exciting, there aren't many Democratic voters that I've seen who are excited about Hillary. In fact most people who are avid Hillary supporters are quiet about it from what I've seen. Bernie on the other hand does excite people. That's why he's trending just behind Hillary in most Democratic polls. The Democratic party knows that Bernie would loose to whoever the Republicans put against him, so for the "good of the party" the system is rigged.

The same thing is happening on the Republican side as well. It has become obvious in recent weeks as the Republican party is trying to make sure that people know how the convoluted delegate system works. It's absurd, some states have delegates that are bound to candidates that are no longer in the race.

Some states do not unbind delegates after a certain number of ballots. In Alabama, delegates are elected on the primary ballot, listed next to the presidential candidate they support. They must continue to support that candidate at the convention until two-thirds of the delegation votes to change, or until the candidate releases them.

Other states, like Alaska, unbind delegates if their candidate drops out of the race. Marco Rubio, who suspended his campaign in mid-March, sent a letter to the state party asking it not to release the five delegates he won there.

In 2012, supporters of Representative Ron Paul, the last remaining Republican challenger to Mitt Romney, fought to secure delegates at local and state conventions, particularly in states where those delegates were not tied to election results.

The Iowa delegation, for example, was made up primarily of Mr. Paul’s supporters, even though Mr. Romney and Rick Santorum essentially tied for first in the state’s caucuses.

These tactics did not go over smoothly at the convention. Half of Mr. Paul’s delegates from Maine were unseated, and his supporters erupted with anger after Mr. Romney’s allies passed new rules to prevent Mr. Paul from qualifying for the first nomination vote on the floor.

The party, either party, will get who they want as their nominee. The popular vote has very little to do with who becomes president. People are just now figuring this out.

The democrat primary system is rigged, and always has been. All you need to know is that there are delegates which are not bound in any way to the popular vote.

The argument can be made that this setup was to protect from a populist gaining control and causing irreparable damage. The problem is; now, there are people in place causing irreparable damage and there is no way to get them out! Systems such as our Republic were designed to function with people in charge who were honest and actually looked out for the good of the country. Those times have passed; now it's all about maintaining the power base for either party.

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If you enjoy my writing, you might want to check out my original blog WindUpRubberFinger.com. I have decided to mirror my posts on Substack, and WindUpRubberFinger.com. I will work on moving older posts over to Substack as references for newer articles.