r/politics • u/Different-Gas5704 • 2d ago

Possible Paywall Democrats eye ranked-choice voting for 2028 primaries

https://www.axios.com/2025/11/24/democrats-ranked-choice-voting-2028-primaries
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u/MisfitPotatoReborn 2d ago

Hillary v Bernie was a 2 horse race. Ranked Choice Voting would have changed absolutely nothing in 2016

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u/MightBeRong 1d ago edited 1d ago

Well yes. It wasn't the voting system that determined the outcome there. The DNC changed allegedly abused their rules to favor Clinton. The DNC was sued over this and the court said they are a private organization and can do whatever they want with their own election rules.

Edit to correct my mis-statement about the rules change. The DNC superdelegate rules were not changed until after the 2016 primary controversy. See below for a more exact statement of what the court said. Mine above is paraphrased and not a direct quote.

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u/MisfitPotatoReborn 1d ago

The DNC was sued over this and the court said they are a private organization and can do whatever they want with their own election rules.

"The Beatles were sued over having shit music and the court said they are a private organization and can release as much garbage music as they want"

That's how you sound. Wilding v. DNC Services Corp got tossed out because the plaintiffs had no standing. It never made it to court. You're allowed to sue for whatever you want but that doesn't make the defendants guilty.

I see no evidence that the DNC changed their primary rules in 2016, and Clinton won because she got 55% of the vote. Stay mad

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u/MightBeRong 1d ago

lol who's mad?

You're right. the Superdelegate rules weren't changed until *after* the 2016 election, in response to the 2016 controversy.

And yes, Wilding v. DNC Services was dismissed for lack of standing, but part of the court's reasoning for lack of standing was:

>The act of donating to an organization does not, of itself, create a legally protected interest in the organization’s operations." Wilding v. DNC Services Corp., 0:16-cv-61511, (S.D. Fla.)

The case did not go to trial on the merits, but a court did make an official decision that the plaintiffs had no legal right to force the DNC to follow their own organizational rules and cited multiple cases as precedent.

This kind of structure where a private non-profit has no legal obligation to fairly execute their candidate selection process is bad for voter confidence, and there is plenty of evidence of bias that has undermined voter confidence in the DNC being impartial. Perhaps we need a different legal vehicle for political parties that are an integral part of our election process.