The U.S. is not a democracy. It never has been. It is a democratic republic. What's the difference, you may ask? In a democracy, citizens vote directly on all laws and policies. In a democratic republic, citizens vote for representatives, who in turn make policy decisions on the citizenry's behalf.
In other words, you have the right to vote for someone else who will in turn cast the votes that really count. THAT is the principle of democracy in this country, as well as in the Democratic primaries. Halving the delegates of Florida and Michigan in no way violates voters' rights or makes voters voices "count less," because they never directly counted to begin with. Their votes would count for electing their assigned number of delegates to the convention, same as always. The only difference would be that those delegates' votes would only count for half as much.
Or, to put it simply: The voters' votes would count in full, but the delegates' (not to be confused with the voters) votes would not.
Those are the rules, folks. And not only are those rules fully constitutional, but everybody agreed to those rules from the outset. Yes, even Hillary Clinton:
And Terry McAuliffe:
"I'm going outside the primary window," [Michigan Sen. Carl Levin] told me definitively."If I allow you to do that, the whole system collapses," I said. "We will have chaos. I let you make your case to the DNC, and we voted unanimously and you lost."
He kept insisting that they were going to move up Michigan on their own, even though if they did that, they would lose half their delegates. By that point Carl and I were leaning toward each other over a table in the middle of the room, shouting and dropping the occasional expletive.
"You won't deny us seats at the convention," he said.
"Carl, take it to the bank," I said. "They will not get a credential. The closest they'll get to Boston will be watching it on television. I will not let you break this entire nominating process for one state. The rules are the rules. If you want to call my bluff, Carl, you go ahead and do it."
We glared at each other some more, but there was nothing much left to say. I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it. [Source: McAuliffe, Terry. What A Party!, p. 325.]
Halving the delegates is in accordance with both the letter (the DNC is a private party and has the right to set its own rules) and the spirit (all votes count, but not directly) of the law. So let's stop with the nonsense, please. The halving proposal is a perfectly reasonable, appropriate, and legal solution to the Florida/Michigan problem. The Republicans who live there (and whose delegates were halved from the getgo) aren't complaining. Why are you?
EDIT: Just to clarify, I am not saying that this system is perfect or ideal. But it is the system we have now, and to utterly throw that system out the window at the moment would be significantly less ideal. Anarchy is in no way superior to representative democracy.DOUBLE EDIT: As for everyone complaining that halving the delegates is unfair because "you're arbitrarily reducing the impact of their vote," I have two things to say to you. One, it isn't arbitrary at all. You knowingly break the rules, you incur the consequences. Convicted felons don't get a vote in elections at all, even if they are citizens, because they broke the rules. So it goes. Two, if infractions stop having consequences, that is NOT good for democracy. Think of all the little spoiled brats you've ever seen that you just can't stand. How did they get that way? Because nobody enforced any rules in his/her household, so the little brat thought he/she could get away with anything. Same principle here. Unless you want to see the 2012 primary race begin in January 2010, stop trying to reward bad behavior.
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