Let us start with the primaries:
When you vote in the primaries, as a registered party member, your vote is meant to affect or influence the "delegates". A Delegate is a member of a group or an organization at a meeting or a conference (in the case of elections, the delegates are members of a certain party i.e. Democratic Party or Republican Party). The Delegates are officials who choose a candidate that they feel would best represent the "party" in the election. Even if the majority of voters choose candidate "A", the delegates can decide, with no exceptions or explanations, that candidate "B" will be the contender in the race.
Prior to this upcoming Presidential election, I had never heard of a "Super-Delegate" before. A Super-Delegate is seated automatically, based solely on their status as current or former party leaders and elected officials. They are not officially registered in any of the party's rules and regulations as an official Delegate, and the name itself is an invention of the media. But, these individuals, who have power and clout, and history as party leaders (therefore, making them "super") can vote for any contender they wish in the primaries, even outside of their party lines. Super Delegates only exist within the Democratic Party (more or less).
So....why vote in the primaries? To exercise our rights? Personally, I don't want to "exercise" anything. I want to be heard, I want my vote and others who vote like me to be listened to by the Delegates of my party - you know, the way it is intended to work, whereas our "leaders" are really our "employees". I want my vote to count, for real. If you owned a company, and you instructed your managers to carry out certain tasks, then you would expect them to listen and comply. If your managers continued to do things that were the opposite of what you requested, doing instead what they think is best, then you'd fire those managers, wouldn't you?
Let's move on to the General Elections:
Much like the primary elections, the majority of citizens place a vote for the candidate they want to see in office, with no matter of which party you are in. Then, representatives from the "Electoral College" are supposed to vote for the contender according to what the majority of the "citizens" in their districts have chosen.
Our current President won the last election by Electoral Votes. This means, that the Popular vote (or the vote of the people of the US) was disregarded by the representatives in the Electoral College, and these representatives voted for who they thought would be the best President. Again, if you instructed the managers of your company to paint the walls red, and they went over your head and painted them blue because they thought this color would be better, wouldn't you, as the boss, fire these managers due to insubordination?
So, why vote in the Presidential Elections?
The chain works as follows. This is where your vote truly counts....
The State Legislators nominate the Electors. Every state law in the US allows the Electors to be chosen by popular vote (that's you and me). Electors are people who pledge their commitment to a certain candidate. Electors claim openly who they would choose for President, or any other vote they are controlling (but they can change this stance if they wish too!). So, it is in our best interest, if we want to see a particular candidate win the vote, to start by electing proper Legislators.
Once we have the proper Legislators (lawmakers) in place, we instruct them, as our employees, to choose Electors who will vote with the Citizens in mind, and who will vote for the contender that We, the people, want to see in office. If they don't listen to us, we ought to fire them.
So, you could vote in every Presidential Election (like me) and never see the candidate that you've voted for in office (like me) because your employees (Legislators and Electors) are not listening to you. The right time to vote, in order to process real change, is during Legislator and Electoral elections in your state. Choosing the right candidiates to represent you as a Legislator and an Elector is far more imporant than clicking a computerized button of who you think should be President.
If you didn't vote in the last Legislative Election, then don't bother voting for President...I know, in today's "Vote Vote Vote" mentality...this sounds adverse...but it isn't.
The "Electoral College" is a German concept. The Germans used the Legislator and Electoral processes since their days as a "Kingdom" a long, long time ago...yes, even Hitler was "elected" by the Electoral Process. This process was also adopted by the Christian Church, and now, many countries around the world.
New York State has 31 Electoral Votes in the election. That's 31 people out of 19 Million.
Try finding 31 publically listed New York State electors....I couldn't, so I am writing to the NYS Board of Election to find out who they are, and who they have pledged to vote for. I do wonder, what is the big secret, and to re-use my analogy one last time: If you owned a company, wouldn't you want to know who your managers were, so you could properly manage them?
Hope this winding path of how our voting system works is useful - best wishes in the upcoming election!
