In Deutschland entscheidet doch auch nur die Partei darüber, wen sie als Spitzenkandidaten für die nächste Wahl aufstellt, und nicht die gesamte Wählerschaft.

Was ist denn undemokratisch daran, dass eine Partei von ihren Mitgliedern darüber abstimmen lässt, wer in der nächsten Wahl als ihr Kandidat antreten soll?
In D wird auf Parteitagen darüber abgestimmt, in den USA heißen diese Abstimmungen in den einzelnen Staaten halt Vorwahlen.

Siehe auch: Dynamik des US-Wählerwillens

Alle 4 Jahre ...

Als erste kurze Antwort die dich nicht viel weiterbringen wird: Dass bei Vorwahlen zur Findung des Präsidentschaftskanditaten einer Partei nur Parteimitglieder abstimmen dürfen, finde ich nicht verkehrt. (Damals bei der Entscheidung Schröder/Scharping/Lafontaine durften ja auch nur SPD Mitglieder abstimmen... und es geht ja auch keinen anderen was an.) Ist aber nicht so, auch dies ist von Staat zu Staat unterschiedlich. In Michigan zum Beispiel durfte jeder (registrierte Wähler) abstimmen. Siehe, z.B. "Operation Hilarity".

Generell ist mein Eindruck diese Jahr, dass ein großes Chaos herrscht in bezug auf Kandidaten, die es nicht geschafft haben, sich überall auf die Wahllisten zu setzen, und auf der anderen Seite aber auch Chaos beim Auszählen. Ersteres liegt an den Wahlkampfteams, zweiteres wohl eher an den Parteiorganisationen der jeweiligen Staaten. Was die Ursachen sind, weiß ich nicht.

Was meinst du mit unterschiedlich gewichtet? Es gibt, wenn ich es richtig erinnere, einen Staat, Missouri, dessen Stimmen nicht zählen, da die Partei des Staates ein frühes Vorwahldatum wollte. Da aber eigentlich (bis auf die traditionell frühen Staaten New Hampshire, Iowa und Vermont (??)) keine Vorwahlen vor dem 6. März geben sollte, festgelegt durch den RNC, zählt es halt nicht.

Schau mal hier: http://usaerklaert.wordpress.com/index-der-ei...

Eine geniale Seite, auf der genau sowas erklärt wird.

Edith: noch genauer hier: http://usaerklaert.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/w...

Ich kann mich an einen Leserbrief einer (ohnehin nicht allzu hoch in meinem Ansehen stehenden) Tageszeitung erinnern, in welcher jemand forderte, dass die ganze Welt an US-Präsidentenwahlen teilnehmen können dürfen solle, weil diese Entscheidung die ganze Welt anginge. (Ob die Amerikaner im Gegenzug auch an Bundestags-, Nationalrats-, Präsidentenwahlen usw. der ganzen übrigen Welt teilnehmen dürften, erwähnte der engagierte Briefschreiber aber nicht. Vielleicht hätte er es "imperialistisch" gefunden. Oder wie man in dieser Szene in einem solchen Fall sagen müsste, ich weiß nicht.)

Primary elections (not "preliminaries") form the process for determine who a party's candidate will be in the upcoming general election and are used at all levels of elections, not just the presidential election. Rules for having your name placed on a ballot vary from state to state, but you usually have to collect a certain number of signatures from registered voters within the area you are running in. The party itself does not usually determine who is on the primary ballot.
Most states use a voting (secret balloting) system, as is used in the general election, too. Some states, like Iowa and Minnesota, use the caucus system, which is where people in the same party and voting district get together to discuss the candidates and then state/write down their preference. In these systems, the information from the caucuses is usually used at an upcoming local party convention, which is where they determine who the candidate will be.
For presidential elections, the method of determining each party's candidate is a bit more complicated, as it takes place at their national convention, usually in late summer before the November election. In this case, the primaries actually serve to select delegates for a particular candidate. These delegates must usually vote for their candidate at least on the first vote at the convention. If there is no clear winner from the first vote, they usually can switch to another candidate. (Rules for the process vary between the parties and from year to year -- the government gives the parties a great deal of freedom in how they select their candidates.)
To make things more complicated, true independents, i.e. persons without a party affiliation, can be on the general election ballot without going through the primary procedure. They just have to collect enough signatures of registered voters in every state in which they wish to be on the ballot.
There are "closed" and "open" primaries, depending on the state (and, I believe, how the local party wishes to run the primary if the state doesn't determine it.) In a closed primary (such as in Illinois), you only have the option of voting on the candidates from one party (e.g., when I sent in my request for an absentee ballot from Illinois, I had to say which party's ballot I wanted to receive -- general elections are not "closed".) You do not need to make that request in an "open" primary (such as Michigan), so the ballot has candidates from both/all parties on it.
Contrary to what appears to be indicated in #4, every registered voter is entitled to vote in the primaries: they are not restricted to party "members". Party "membership" has quite a different meaning in the US than in many places. To say you are a Democrat or a Republican really just means you identify with that party and does not mean that you have to apply for membership or register as a member somewhere. (The closest we have to that is asking for a particular party's ballot in a closed primary. However, you do not need to show any proof of party membership, and you have total freedom to change your preference in the next primary simply by asking for a different party's ballot.)
I've lived in Germany now for 12 years (and six years before that elsewhere in Europe). I still am baffled at elections here: how the party's themselves have such a strong say in determining who is standing for election and the priority in which they will be placed into office based on the number of seats won, etc., as well as the obscure, elitist manner in which the president is elected. Still, it seems to work -- even if I consider it far removed from the more grass-roots oriented system in the US.
To call one system more democratic than the other is usually because you don't understand the other system fully.
And, yes, the US Republican primary this year is filled with chaos and mistakes. Some of those/us in the other main party are very glad that it is so...

waltherwithh,
die wesentlichen Dinge zu deiner Frage wurden schon gesagt, deshalb nur ein paar Gegenfragen:
- Warum schreibst du "Demokratie", wenn die US-Wähler doch im Gegensatz zum deutschen System direktes Mitspracherecht bei der Kandidatenauswahl haben?
- Wie sollte man dann deiner Meinung nach das deutsche System nennen? Klüngelnominierung? Hinterzimmerauswahl? Wer-hat-sich-über-die-letzten-Jahrzehnte-am-fleissigsten-in-der-Partei-hochgedient-und-ist-jetzt-dran-Verfahren?

Nur damit keine Missverständnisse aufkommen: Mir gefällt überhaupt nicht, dass die Chance aufs US-Präsidentenamt direkt mit der zum Wahlkampf zur Verfügung stehenden Geldmenge korreliert, aber Obama ist immerhin das Beispiel dafür, dass man es auch schaffen kann ohne persönlich reich zu sein (und auch viele vorherige Präsidenten haben ihre Millionen erst nach der Präsidentschaft verdient, z.B. Bill Clinton).

#7: I still am baffled at elections here: how the party's themselves have such a strong say in determining who is standing for election and the priority in which they will be placed into office based on the number of seats won, etc., as well as the obscure, elitist manner in which the president is elected.
Nun, ich fürchte das lässt sich wieder mal nur im Kontext der deutschen Geschichte verstehen. Nach der Nazizeit sollte wohl in der neugegründeten Demokratie jede Direktwahl zu höheren Ämtern vermieden werden, um den Aufstieg eines neuen Populisten möglichst zu erschweren. Deshalb werden sowohl der Staatspräsident als auch der Regierungschef indirekt gewählt. Einen ähnlichen Hintergrund könnte auch die Auswahl des Wahlsystems haben: Verhältniswahlrecht statt Mehrheitswahlrecht.

In diesen Vorwahlen ist es eben keine Demokratie, wenn z.B. nur registrierte Leute abstimmen dürfen. Irgendwo im GG steht wohl, die Macht geht vom Volke aus, davon merke ich heute weder hier noch in USA viel. Wenn mal ein Abgeordneter wirklich auf die "Stimmen" aus seinem Wahlkreis hört, gilt er gleich als Abweichler.
Ich finde die Ausführungen von hbberlin ganz interessant. Sorry für meinen Verschreiber bei "primaries".
Mir ist in den letzten Monaten (fast schon Jahren) der Appetit auf Politik vergangen.
Es war mir aber eben nicht so bewusst, dass dieses amerikanische System auch noch stark je nach Staat unterscheidet und damit völlig undurchsichtig wird.

Prinzipiell ist das noch eine Übersteigerung des "Amigo-Prinzips", wenn sich da Leute für Unsummen von Geld ein Abendessen mit NN (Name beliebig) erkaufen. Damit unterscheidet sich das auch kaum noch vom "Wulffen".
Heute abend ist ja leider noch nicht Schluss, Narhalla-Marsch wäre es gewesen... als Musikstück. Mir ist zum ......

Sachte, sachte.

Ich halte es für vollkommen korrekt, dass die Wahl, wer für eine Partei antritt, von den Personen getroffen wird, die sich zu dieser Partei durch Beitritt und Zahlung eines Mitgliedsbeitrags bekennen. Ob das direkt oder indirekt geschieht, ist dabei für mich nicht so wichtig wie die Tatsache, dass ich mir einen Kandidaten, für den ich Wahlkampf machen soll, nicht von Stefan Raab oder Dieter Bohlen, Handy-Voting oder dem politischen Gegner vorschreiben lassen muss.

Demokratien (und analog Parteien) arbeiten nun einmal mit direkten und repräsentativen Verfahren, und der Föderalismus bremst, mal von einer anderen Seite aus betrachtet, das harte Durchstellen von Mehrheiten etwas aus. Solche komplizierten Verfahren dienen damit auch immer ein Stück weit dem Minderheitenschutz.

Das alles kann natürlich durch die Praxis in vielerlei Hinsicht ausgehöhlt oder auch missbraucht werden. Aber das Verfahren, bei dem so etwas nicht geschieht, habe ich noch nicht kennengelernt.

Auch scheinbar basisdemokratische Elemente können übrigens in konfliktären Situationen sehr belastende Wirkungen entfalten. Ich bin Mitglied in einer Partei, in der man dieses Phänomen in ausgesuchten Landesverbänden gut beobachten kann.

Das ist doch noch nicht die Wahl des Präsidenten, sondern die Wahl des Präsidentschaftskandidaten einer Partei. Wie die Vorredner schon sagten: wieso sollten daran auch Nicht-Parteimitglieder teilnehmen dürfen? Hast Du in D als Nicht-Mitglied der Partei X schon mal über den Kanzlerkandidaten der Partei X abgestimmt? Ich nicht.

#9: Es war mir aber eben nicht so bewusst, dass dieses amerikanische System auch noch stark je nach Staat unterscheidet und damit völlig undurchsichtig wird.
Wieder ein Verweis auf die Geschichte: Während nur versucht wurde die Zentralregierung der neugegründeten Bundesrepublik durch die Abgabe von Kompetenzen an die Bundesländer zu schwächen, ist der Staat als ganzes doch ein ziemlich homogenes Gebilde und die Kompetenzen der Länder sind im Wesentlichen auf einige Teilbereiche beschränkt.

Die USA sind in gewisser Weise den umgekehrten Weg gegangen: Weitgehend unabhängige politische Gebilde (Staaten) haben sich zusammengeschlossen und einige Kompetenzen an die Zentralregierung abgegeben (insbesondere Verteidigungs- und Aussenpolitik). Sie sind aber dabei politisch autarker als die deutschen Bundesländer geblieben, und das schliesst unterschiedliche Wahlverfahren ein. Darin kann ich aber keinen Mangel an Demokratie erkennen.

The type of primary election may not necessarily diminish democracy, though some forms do seem more genuinely representative than others. Open primaries, for example, seem more representative than closed ones, which seem to attract only the most uncompromising members of each party.

And at all levels, a winner-take-all or 'first past the post' system is clearly less representative than a more proportional method such as those used in parliamentary systems, including much of western Europe. Because of winner-take-all, anyone who lives in a district or state dominated by the other party, as I do, might as well not vote. (I vote anyway, on principle, but it really is a meaningless exercise.) But proportional can also manage to create gridlock -- wasn't it Belgium or the Netherlands that was without a government for well over a year?

Another relatively undemocratic aspect of the US system is how the calendar for each state's primary is chosen. Because the choice is left up to the states and the two parties, there's no central referee, and thus no effort to rotate the early primaries among a mixture of red and blue states, rural and urban states, coastal and central states, etc. That means that people in certain states always have much more influence than people in other states.

But as eagerly as some of our leaders seem to want to promote democracy in other countries, there's very little political will to improve it in our own. The whole problem with changing any political system is that by definition, all politicians currently in office have benefited from it enough to be elected, so their motivation is always to preserve the status quo. That's why we can't seem to limit campaign spending ,or shorten the time spent campaigning as opposed to governing, or to have redistricting done by computers and nonpartisan committees in order to make every district, and thus every state, more genuinely competitive.

With all its faults, the primary system, or at least some method by which everyone agrees on a single opposition candidate, does at least seem like an advance over an election with too many weak opposition figures, which has been the case in Russia for far too long, and looks like it's going to be just as problematic in places like Egypt, possibly leading from a military one-party state to an Islamist one-party state, which will hardly be an improvement.

In countries where democracy is fragile, it's a constant battle to keep leaders from passing new laws, often by referendum, that tilt the whole system further toward their own party, whether by extending their own terms of office, rewriting the constitution to favor their own party and remove protections for minorities, etc. When that threatens to happen in South America, as with Venezuela, Ecuador, or Bolivia, we see it as a banana republic, a country turning back the clock to dictatorship. (Though at least in Venezuela there may be a slight trend in the other direction this year, since this time the opposition parties have at least picked a single candidate to oppose Chávez.)

The US, for all its flaws, at least used not to face the threat of political regression, of an actual loss of democracy, on anything like that scope. But with the Republican majority on the Supreme Court and results such as the Citizens United decision giving corporations the right to spend unlimited sums in elections, and other right-leaning decisions that can be expected from the court in the immediate future, such as the prevention of fairer redistricting (watch Texas, New York, etc. on this score), the current trend seems to be for the Republicans to try to rewrite as many rules as possible to consolidate their own power, at the cost of any meaningful balance of power.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to find that very worrying for the state of democracy in the US over the next 10 to 20 years, though as always, I hope I'm wrong to be so pessimistic. Perhaps I would be less cynical if my vote counted more.

@ hm -- us

I tried. I really, really tried. But after reading your penultimate paragraph, I had to respond.

What Citizens United actually did was declare unconstitutional all restrictions on non-profit and for-profit corporations (a designation that covers virtually all organized political activity) making independent political statements. As always, the antidote to bad free speech is more free speech - which Citizen United in essence reaffirmed. I might also note that those on your side of the aisle have been silently making more use of the decision while loudly condemning it.

As to the alleged "prevention of fairer redistricting", I can only shake my head at the hypocrisy. I am sure that there is an objective way to redistrict states (how about a simple grid? - couldn't be any worse), but gerrymandering is embraced with as much fervor by Democrats as by Republicans. I remember times when gerrymandering was synonymous with the Democratic Party.

To sum up, the Democrats are in no position whatsoever to criticize Republicans for things Democrats enjoy doing when they hold the reins - to wit, this so-called "consolidation of power". For my part, they can both go to hell - a sentiment I would abandon only if the Republican Party would make the best choice at their convention this year. But I am too pessimistic to think that they would. Neither party is particularly interested in defending the rights of the individual.

By the way, was this a ruse just to get me to surface? :)

Hi, Sol. No, actually not, but it's always nice to see you, even if I feel I can predict your political perspective with or without your personal presence. (-;

Yes, you're absolutely right about gerrymandering, and even though it's currently dominated by the right, after the next 10 or 20 years the Hispanic population will very likely have grown enough to swing it back to the left. So it seems to me that it would behoove the right to cooperate in finding a fairer system before that happens. California seems to at least be trying a nonpartisan commission, but that state is in such bad shape on so many other fronts that it may not be a fair test.

On Citizens United, your impression that the left is making more use of it doesn't tally with the numbers I've seen, which suggest that corporations are outspending unions so far by something like 10 to 1. I imagine we would both have to do a good deal more research to define the terms and compare the figures on a less impressionistic basis.

But to me, the point about limiting massive corporate speech, and explicitly separating nonprofit political speech from for-profit marketing, is that the latter tends toward greater and greater monopoly. Because a corporation is not only a political group but a business, it can also sell products and stock and raise still more money to spend on lobbying for tax and regulatory subsidies, which in turn allow it to sell more products and more stock, and in turn spend more on lobbying, and on and on. Without regulation, its influence soon multiplies to the point where it completely suppresses speech by private individuals -- even union members, who after all only pay a flat fee, not continuing interest and profits. The only way I can see to assure more equal political speech for all individual people is to limit campaign spending, period, and provide a limited amount of free air time to all candidates above some minimum threshold of support, like 5%. But since campaign spending too has of course been eagerly abused by both parties, the chances are also poor for reform to actually happen.

If you're inclined to vote for Paul, by all means please feel free. The only thing that really seems to have been successful in recent elections is for the opposition to spend too many votes on a third-party candidate. (-:

I would be happy to talk further about this & would actually send you a PM, but I can't on this old computer; maybe in a few days. In the meantime, hang in there if you're still in lovely LA.

#8: Thanks for the explanation of that, Oxymorphon. Until the xxth Amendment to the US Constitution, it was our Senate, I believe, that was selected by the states themselves, and not by dire election. (Funny, certain Republicans proposed repealing that amendment last year...) Also, our Electoral College, which actually chooses the president, was, I believe, set up to accomplish much the same as you explain. (And, I believe, could actually be the solution to electing a president without doing run-offs if the US were to some day have a viable multi-party system instead of functionally a two-party system and no candidate were to receive a majority of the vote -- Bush v. Gore excepted.

#11: "Ich halte es für vollkommen korrekt, dass die Wahl, wer für eine Partei antritt, von den Personen getroffen wird, die sich zu dieser Partei durch Beitritt und Zahlung eines Mitgliedsbeitrags bekennen." I'm not sure if you're referring to the US system here or not, but if you are, such a thing as joining a party and paying dues/membership fees to the party has nothing to do with being able to vote in a closed primary in the US, where all you need to do is request the ballot of the party you wish to vote in.

#9: "In diesen Vorwahlen ist es eben keine Demokratie, wenn z.B. nur registrierte Leute abstimmen dürfen." I have to disagree with you. Voters' Registration in the US is usually a fairly simple process. A) You must be a US citizen to vote. (Germany has the same sort of regulation, apart from the right of EU citizens to vote in local elections -- something which I, even as a permanent resident here, do not enjoy.) B) You have to prove that you actually live in the locale where you are voting. (The US has no "Anmeldung" system, which, as I understand it, is how one is "registered" to vote here.) Various states deal with this differently, and the Republican-led states are tending to make it more difficult to register by restricting exactly what type of ID proves that you live in that locale as well as eliminating (where it exists) same-day registration.
And, as I've said, even in closed primaries, you don't need to "belong" to a party (if that's what you mean by registering) to vote in that party's primary. You simply ask for that party's ballot when you arrive at the polling place -- or, in my case, when you request your absentee ballot.

@#16 I'm not sure if you're referring to the US system here or not
Sorry für die leichte Themenabgleitung, ich bezog mich mehr auf walterwithh's Generalkritik in der #9: "Irgendwo im GG steht wohl, die Macht geht vom Volke aus, davon merke ich heute weder hier noch in USA viel. (...)"
Ich wollte zum Ausdruck bringen, dass mir das deutsche System der Kandidatenfindung deutlich strenger, aber nicht undemokratisch erscheint.