Capitol Report
By State Representative, Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
Is Donald Trump right? The GOP presidential frontrunner has been complaining for weeks about the nomination process for president. And, according to Trump, the process is “rigged.” This begs the question: Is there any truth to Trump’s latest assertion?
Earlier this week, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the respective frontrunners, scored huge victories in Gotham City. At stake were a treasure trove of delegates: 95 delegates on the Republican side, while the Democrats had 247 delegates up for grabs. It came as no surprise that Trump and Clinton would do well. After all, both were playing on their home turf and early polls showed that each candidate enjoyed commanding leads. But, New York has a closed primary contest.
That means in order to vote in this primary you have to be registered either as a Democrat or a Republican before the voter registration deadline, which was last October 9. There are more than 5.7 million registered Democrats in New York, according to data on the website of the state Board of Elections. However, a large number of New Yorkers are systematically denied their right to vote in a major party primary election in that state. Case in point, more than 3 million people — about 27 percent of the state’s voters — were registered outside the Republican and Democratic parties as of April. In a presidential campaign marked by popular non-establishment candidates and high Independent voter turnout, those voters could swing the primary results significantly.
But in other states, the process for all voters — registered or not — is a bit more flexible. At least 16 states have completely open primaries, where anyone is allowed to vote in the presidential nominating contest, regardless of party affiliation. Not to mention that ten states have semi-open primaries, where party-affiliated voters are restricted to their party’s primary but independent voters can choose which nominating contest they’d like to vote in. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were both elated after their primary victories in New York, but was it a true indication of the voters’ preference?
In the case of Bernie Sanders, his chances of upsetting Hillary Clinton were severely compromised by the disenfranchisement of Independent voters. Rest assured that there will be renewed calls for Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz and John Kasich to get out of the race, so Clinton and Trump can start focusing on the general election.
But, there appears to be little doubt that the road to the White House is cluttered with a myriad of primary and caucus potholes, many of which serve to undermine the will of the people.