Why the American primaries are undemocratic

I remember reading an article prior to the American elections of 2016, where in there was a harsh statement but one I personally think there is more truth to than one might just think. The statement is as follows ” You thought America was a democracy? Think again. The presidential election, for starters, obviously isn’t democratic: The president is elected by an electoral college with just 538 voters, none of whom have any choice as to whom they’re allowed to vote for.” And can anyone argue against that? Not really, but the problem with the American electoral system goes even deep than just the general elections, and in to the primaries.

In the primaries it once again isn’t the population who directly chooses who gets to win, convention delegates do. So just like Donald Trump won the general election in 2016 without winning the popular vote, the same is possible in the primaries, but as far as I know this hasn’t happened on a national level yet. But it happens quite on often on a state level. America has more Democrats than it has Republicans, and Sanders’s support among Democrats is greater than Trump’s among Republicans or at least it was in 2016 now that has probably changed. But if you imagine for just a second that american had a more representative system, where multiple people could run in the general election from the same political party, a greater share of the population would get to vote for who they believe would be the best for their country. And there simply is no reason for keeping it the way that it is today, other than for the parties to keep power over who gets to run for president rather than the people of America.

I personally think that a single transferable voting system would be the best for America. This is a system where votes rank the candidates in order of preference, in this system the one with most support gets to win the presidency. For more information on this system i recommend the following Youtube video from CGP Grey : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI

Thanks for reading