The problem with Super Tuesday

There are advantages and disadvantages
with having different
states hold presidential primary elections on different days.
One disadvantage is that voters in different states find
their votes are not equal. Voters in early states have
a dispropotionate influence on the result, and often
voters in later states find that some of the candidates
have dropped out before they even get a chance to vote.

However, there is an advantage in having states
vote on different days. Candidates don’t have the
difficult and expensive task of campaigning across
the whole country, because they can focus on different
states at different times. This benefit may be worth it.

However, since states can mostly choose their own
primary dates, there is no reason for a state to choose
a late date and be disenfranchised in the nomination
process. When many states choose an early date
then you have a date such as Super Tuesday with many
simultaneous primaries. As a result, we get the
worst of both worlds. The current system combines
the disadvantage of idiosyncratic primary timing
creating unequal state influnce with the disadvantage of
having so many primaries on a single day that candidates
lose the ability to focus on a few states at a time.

More on the presidential nominating process at

https://douglasadowning.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/is-there-a-better-way-to-nominate-a-president/

……………..
–Douglas Downing
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