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[Baffler]

Well the exact situation is unprecedented but candidate coordination between rivals is certainly not unprecedented.

What're you thinking of? Googling it just comes up with stuff about candidates coordinating with super PACs.

It doesn't make it any less distasteful, in any case. And it certainly feeds the rhetoric about there only being an illusion of choice.

[mainiac]

The 1800 and 1860 elections would be some examples.

[Powder Miner]

I'm not seeing what's so distasteful about it. It's their decision where they focus their campaigns.

[Baffler]

It's because they're openly coordinating against the clear frontrunner, and in Kasich's case staying in the election for the sole purpose of siphoning off votes, and have made it very clear that they think they know better than their constituents.

[WealthyRadish]

If they weren't doing it in the open I'd agree, but it's better to be angry about the system than the candidates' strategies. The existence of winner-take-all states in the primaries (and the two-party system in general that results in insurgent campaigns like this in the first place) are better things to blame if this causes an undemocratic result.

[Baffler]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to be angry with the people who are actively and openly working toward an undemocratic result.

Someone who does something wrong is wrong regardless of whether or not the rules say they are. Especially when the people who do those things are the ones who make the rules.

[Frumple]

I'unno baff, "clear frontrunner" still has a majority of the party they're running for voting not them, so far as I'm aware (mind, I'm a bit behind paying attention, mostly because I've got zero influence in the republican primaries, but still). Seems to me coordinating to try to get the system to properly represent the constituents is... fairly tasteful?

Not really what I'd call working towards an undemocratic results. Rather quite the opposite, with the system as is being the one trying to functionally disenfranchise millions of republican voters...

... admittedly, the system does that every year, but shit, I'm all for one or both of the parties actually doing something to try to counteract that to whatever degree, no matter how self-serving they may be in the process.

[Shadowlord]

Yes, one of the Kochs issued a statement saying he was considering supporting Clinton.  I'm sure this will surprise many Sanders supporters who thought he already was.

That's not what he said, according to the one article I read so far (which I was annoyed at for using only a few quotes and mostly summarizing what Charles Koch said/thought. Of course, probably what he said was entirely in the video on the article, the scripts for which I blocked a long time ago because autoplaying videos are annoying. I can see the "ABC EXCLUSIVE" thing on the one frame of the video which is shown. (Which doesn't necessarily mean it's true - it's undoubtedly on youtube if I had any idea what to search for beyond "charles koch")

That article, though, is here, if you really want to look at it.

TL;DR: I think ABC thinks Charles Koch thinks Trump and Cruz are terrifying and Hillary Clinton is not so much, what with her not talking about bombing places until the sand glows, or saying things "reminiscent of Nazi Germany."

[mainiac]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to be angry with the people who are actively and openly working toward an undemocratic result.

You are begging the question there saying it's undemocratic.  A majority of votes have gone to candidates who aren't Trump.  They say they dont want Trump to be the nominee.  So they are in fact going with the majority position.

[Powder Miner]

What in the world do you mean by undemocratic? They're campaigning to get enough voters so that Trump doesn't get a nomination, they're not rigging the system, and they're not forcing any voters. If a brokered convention does come to pass, it will be because the way people voted for it made it come to pass. Like... you don't think they should be folding for Trump, right? This is simply the only way to effectively actually put up some resistance on that front (and it is, again, totally reliant on the voters).

[WealthyRadish]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to be angry with the people who are actively and openly working toward an undemocratic result.

You are begging the question there saying it's undemocratic.  A majority of votes have gone to candidates who aren't Trump.  They say they dont want Trump to be the nominee.  So they are in fact going with the majority position.

This logic could be applied to any of the republican candidates, or any 3+ race where one candidate doesn't hit 50%. If the race ended with the popular vote at something like 40/30/15/15%, the most democratic result (or least undemocratic) would be the frontrunner winning. In any winner-take-all election the results aren't perfectly democratic, since all the losing voters effectively get no representation, but it should be obvious that one result is more democratic than the others.

[Reelya]

Hmm I definitely think all-party primaries (first pass the post voting), then instant run-off voting for president from the top-scoring 5-6 candidates would be the best and simplest reform to implement for the American Presidential system, because it could be worked in without a constitutional amendment. The constitution enforces that the electoral colleges votes are counted. It say nothing about how the electoral colleges choose who to vote for, so a system could be built around that, which technically adheres to the constitution.

All-party primaries would mean the end of party-based registration. Because it would no longer be necessary. Registering to a party carries the risk of being politically targeted. America has seen this (Registered democrats set fake information, having their registrations taken, then disposed of, etc, falsely purged from voter rolls etc). It would also mean less chance of "sabotage" e.g. voting in the other guys primaries to sabotage the result. Then you could take the top e.g. 5-6 candidates and have them all face off in national elections with IRV voting. There would be less backroom dealing, and less accusations of the vote being stolen: all viable candidates got their fair chance in the general election.

But the entrenched party bureaucrats would be the big losers so they'd never let any reforms like this through.

[Twi]

Yes, one of the Kochs issued a statement saying he was considering supporting Clinton.  I'm sure this will surprise many Sanders supporters who thought he already was.

Hey now, I may like Sanders but I can accept that Clinton isn't the antichrist
That other people can't is... kind of sad, honestly. I may not LIKE her, but I still prefer her to the alternative of BURN IT ALL DOWN.

[smjjames]

Even if they are trying to coordinate things, it doesn't neccesarily mean that the voters will follow suit on that, but given the desperation, anything's possible.

[penguinofhonor]

Trump would be the most democratic choice in a simple winner-take-all vote but there's a reason this election isn't one of those. Plenty of elections do not allow people to win with less than 50% of the votes, because pluralities can be far less democratic than a system with contingency plans. If a candidate with minority opinions gets 40% of the vote, while three similar candidates split the remaining 60%, it is not obviously democratic to give the minority the candidacy because they fielded fewer people.