Delegate Allocation Systems in Nominating Contests for United States Presidential Elections

Abstract

Electing a leader is one of the most important tasks a citizen of a democracy can undertake and is the event around which republican government revolves. However, each country must find a way to move from considering every politician and outsider who harbors a desire for the presidency, to a few qualified candidates. In the United States, this process is accomplished by the two major political parties and, more specifically, their primary processes. The methods through which the Democrats and the Republicans choose their nominees for presidents has changed a great deal since the days of closed door dealings and party elites keeping the public out of the process. Though the primaries and caucuses that the parties use today offer more of an opportunity for participation than their forebears 200 years ago, there are still a variety of problems which I examine in this paper. I focus specifically on the methods which states use to allocate delegates to the national conventions and discuss why states ought to use proportional representation methods rather than winner-take-all systems. The main reasons for this preference are the general unsuitability of plurality systems for races with more than two candidates and the greater range of representation that proportional representation affords citizens, especially those in minority groups. I also examine the use of superdelegates and explain why they need to be limited in a democracy and that, despite the DNC’s recent steps to reduce the power of superdelegates, they ought to be removed entirely or limited in the way that Republican unpledged delegates are.