Editorial: Let voters decide

Here is a recommendation for Republicans and Democrats: Just count the votes.

This common-sense solution to our convoluted nominating and electoral processes, which seems so obvious to the people, somehow escapes the wisdom of party leaders. Or does it?

On the Republican side, the winner of the popular vote in each state’s presidential primary takes all of that state’s delegates. This makes states with small delegate numbers irrelevant in national campaigns because states with huge delegate counts like California, Texas, Florida and New York have enough influence to determine the outcome. This year, like most years, the Republican nominee was determined long before the race came to North Carolina.

The Democrats, on the other hand, award their primary delegates proportionally — based on the popular vote. This makes more sense until you factor in the power of superdelegates like Statesville attorney David Parker. Their role, ostensibly, is to tilt the nominating process in the right direction in case voters don’t select the right candidate.

In other words, a small number of Democrats reserve the right to change the outcome if voters do not pick the candidate they want.

North Carolina did have a prominent role in creating superdelegates as Jim Hunt headed the commission which created them. The main purpose, in our opinion, was to make sure the party faithful, instead of the voters, retained control of the outcome of the nominating process.

Democrat candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were campaigning in Puerto Rico last weekend for delegates who do count in the party convention. However, Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the presidential election. You wonder why they have a primary.

The general election is no better with the manner in which electoral votes are awarded. This process allows candidates to campaign in certain states and ignore others. North Carolina is one of the states that has been ignored during the past few general elections because both parties acknowledge those votes will end up in the Republican column.

It is hard to imagine a more complicated system to resolve a national contest. If any other country in the world had a similar system, our political analysts would claim the government was controlling the outcome of the elections. Even worse, the present system leaves people believing their vote does not determine the outcome.

Late-night talk show host Jay Leno jokes that we should turn the presidential election over to the producers of American Idol. That may be a stretch, but the underlying idea of just counting the votes makes sense to most people.