Court Claims Nothing Wrong with Rigging Primaries

[rangerrebew]

Court Claims Nothing Wrong with Rigging Primaries
Published: August 28, 2017
 

The lawsuit brought about by Bernie Sanders supporters against the Democratic National Committee and its former chairperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has been dismissed after a court conceded that the DNC and Wasserman-Schultz rigged the primaries—but were well within their rights to do so—seriously.

After first assuming all the plaintiff’s allegations were true, for the purposes of weighing their claims, Judge William Zloch dismissed the lawsuit on several grounds. The plaintiffs alleged fraud on the part of the DNC in three different ways:

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Court_Claims_Nothing_Wrong_with_Rigging_Primaries/60551/0/38/38/Y/M.html

[Free Vulcan]

The court actually said it doesn't have jurisdiction. Though parties are subject to certain election laws for lower offices, how they determine their nominees for President is up to their bylaws and membership, rigged or no.

[RoosGirl]

I think a lot of people think the DNC and RNC are government entities. The DNC and RNC are private political clubs basically.  At the leaderships' request their nominating and primaries rules can be changed at will.

[Snarknado]

I think if they had literally "rigged the primaries" in the sense of interfering with the voting process or doctoring results, that would be a problem. But a party can do whatever it wants in terms of allocating delegates and setting rules for how those delegates and party officials go about selecting nominees. Of course if they're perceived as having subverted the will of their voters, they face some backlash - especially when their nominee goes on to lose the general election...

[jmyrlefuller]

The court actually said it doesn't have jurisdiction. Though parties are subject to certain election laws for lower offices, how they determine their nominees for President is up to their bylaws and membership, rigged or no.

True. However―there's also the issue of equal protection, which the courts, in the past, have used as a cudgel on other electoral disputes, and since the primaries are a collection of state elections, it would likely apply in this case. The superdelegates might violate that clause.