Reply #49: they all have their own quirks

[Clovis Sangrail]

In Ca districts get between 3 and 6 delegates based on that district's average turnout over the previous 2 presidential elections. I think somehow basing the delegate count on previous turnout is pretty common, though it's affect is muted more or less depending on the state.
I personally dislike that method of apportioning delegates because it penalizes areas with a high percentage of new voters or returning voters.
In the case of Texas, from what I've been reading, it's going to penalize Latino heavy districts this time around, which isn't really fair to the voters or to their candidates.

What I think would be much more fair (as if anybody listens to me :eyes: ) would be to apportion delegates to districts after the vote based on current turnout.

Regarding the conventions, I completely agree that they are a great way for people to get involved in the process and shouldn't be done away with, I'm just not sold on the idea of 1 person counting as much as 6 (or more) others when it comes to elections.
Something that might be *more fair and let the conventions retains some weight beyond delegate selection might be to allow people to take part in one or the other, but not both, and then apportion delegates between the primary and the convention based on the ratio of turnout to both events.
Doing it that way would allow everybody to have an equal vote or...
if the TDP is dead set on convention goers counting more ( and I think they are until enough people realize just how *much more they can count ) doing it this way would allow the disparity between voter value to be fixed rather than fluctuating based on the ration of turnout to the events.

I honestly don't think the activists who show up for conventions need an incentive of getting extra votes.
As I said before, activists already have more influence than other voters by dint of their activism.
The reward for activists is being a part of the process, and that's a pretty big motivator. ;)

Unfortunately, though, the official election process papers I've read are often like build manuals for Rube Goldberg machines.
I read through the TDP delegate selection plan and by the end I thought my brain was going to drip out my ears.
I can understand trying to be as fair as possible resulting in a more complex process, but at some point the negatives of complexity outstrip the positives gained.