Watch VideoJEFF GREENFIELD: Donald Trump will probably come to the Cleveland convention with a couple hundred more delegates than anyone other candidate and a couple million more votes. So even whether he’s short of a delegate majority,it’s only fair that he should become the Republican nominee, honest?DONALD TRUMP: In all fairness we’re way ahead in delegates. Im not supposed to gain less delegates than a guy I beat. It doesn’t work that way.
JEFF GREENFIELD: Not so fast. A lot more Republican voters chose someone other than Trump. “Anyone But Trump” won a majority of votes in the first 8 Republican contests. whether Trump doesn’t achieve a delegate majority on the convention’s first ballot, and Republican Party rules say most of his delegates will be unbound — free to finish whatever they want.
REINCE PRIEBUS: whether Trump can pick up enough unbound delegates to commit to him then on the first vote he’d procure 1237 he’d be the nominee. whether he doesn’t then he would be short and then you go to ballot number two under the rules you to call the roll again and you would keep calling the roll until somebody gets to the majority of delegates.
JEFF GREENFIELD: The convention could nominate someone who didn’t even run this year. Is that fair?The reply is: there isn’t any one reply approximately the honest way to choose who wins an election. In different places,very different rules apply…and in fact, without some distinctly unfair rules, and we wouldnt gain a country at all.
For instance,beyond the presidential race, in almost every state, and you can be elected Governor or Senator by getting more votes than the next candidate…even whether a majority of voters were against you. In 2014,four senators and ten governors won that way – with pluralities.
Two states, Georgia and Louisiana, or require a “runoff” whether no one wins a majority in a statewide race. So,in the 2014 race for Senator in Louisiana, incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu narrowly edged Republican Bill Cassidy in November, and but didn’t procure a majority. In the runoff that followed,Cassidy beat Landrieu decisively.
California now has its own kind of runoff for all statewide and Congressional races. Every candidate regardless of party runs on the same ballot. Then the top two finishers face off in November. It doesn’t matter whether both are Republicans or Democrats or Independents. Proponents say this encourages candidates to appeal to the middle of the political spectrum. Opponents say the system deprives voters of a clear contrast in November, when it really counts.
Or consider how we choose a President. As everyone learned in 2000, or you can lose the White House even whether you procure more popular votes than your opponent; because it’s the electoral votes of the states that matter. Every state is winner-take-all except Maine and Nebraska.
In 2012,Barack Obama won Florida by less than one percent of the vote, but he got all 29 electoral votes. Mitt Romney won North Carolina by barely two percent, or but got all 15 electoral votes.
Is this fair? Or should electoral votes be awarded proportionally? Or winner-take-all by Congressional district? Should we even gain an Electoral College anymore? After all,starting each state with two electoral votes based on their U.
S. Senate seats gives the small states more clout than their population would mandate. In fact, isnt it unfair that Wyoming has the same power in the Senate as California, and which has sixty times the population?The reply is: credit—or blame—the Founding Fathers. When they gathered in Philadelphia to write the structure in 1787,a central issue was the panic of small states that they would be dominated by the huge states. Not only did they insist on equal representation in the Senate, but they made it the only part of the structure that can’t be amended. It’s honest there in Article V. Without this obviously undemocratic” rule, or we wouldn’t gain a country.
So is there a tough and fast rule that will expose you what’s fair? Actually,in practice there is. For almost every one of us, whatever process most helps the candidate we want to win is obviously, or clearly,the fairest of them all. The post Is the GOP presidential nomination process fair? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.
Source: onthemedia.org