Bernie Sanders, Trump Says Primary System Is Rigged, Most Americans Agree

Bernie Sanders has come out swinging against the DNC nominating system, saying that it is rigged and chiding the idea that superdelegates, party stalwarts, will ultimately decide this race. Donald Trump says the GOP’s process is rigged too, even though he’s now the nominee. Both of these politicians have been rebuked for criticizing the system, but the American people are on their side.

According to a poll from Reuters, 51 percent of participants said that the nominating process was rigged against certain candidates. Another 71 percent said that they would prefer a direct vote rather than choosing delegates. Likewise, almost half of the people surveyed said it would be better to have the entire vote on one day rather than spread out the state contests across several months.

This election cycle’s “outsiders” agree, at least about the rigging.

On Sunday, Bernie Sanders talked about the superdelegates.

“When we talk about a rigged system, it’s also important to understand how the Democratic convention works. We have won 45 percent of pledged delegates, but we have only earned 7 percent of superdelegates, so in other words, the way the system works is you have establishment candidates who win virtually all of the superdelegates. It makes it hard for insurgent candidacies like ours to win.”

Part of Bernie Sanders strategy for gaining the nomination is to convince these superdelegates to switch their allegiance based on his campaign’s small-money financial success and match-ups that show he’s the strongest candidate to face Trump in the general election. It currently seems implausible.

Donald Trump also complained about the GOP’s process.

“It’s a rigged, crooked system that’s designed so that the bosses can pick whoever they want and that people like me can’t run and can’t defend you against foreign nonsense.”

The #NeverTrump crowd had hoped for a contested convention in Cleveland, which would allow other candidates to tempt Trump’s delegates into voting against the real estate mogul. That possibility relied on the candidate getting less than the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination in the first round of voting – that’s no longer possible. If it was, it could have sent the GOP into chaos as the candidates closer to party officials overturn the will of the voters.

Both conservatives and liberals share the belief that the two major parties have rigged their systems according to the Reuters poll, but some choose other words to describe it.

Royce Young said, “I’d prefer to see a one-man-one-vote system… The process is so flawed.”

The 76-year-old South Carolinian supports the Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

To add fuel to the criticism, several contests this year have come under scrutiny. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, voters from Bernie Sanders native Brooklyn saw many of their ballots purged, and people were denied the ability to vote at all in Arizona because of a suspicious lack of polling places. Both incidents have led to investigations.

Party bosses have different opinions on the process. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus dismissed Donald Trump’s “rhetoric” and said that the rules would not be changed, at least, not before the convention in Cleveland.

On the Democratic side, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said she wants to change the rules but in a way that would exclude independents according to the Hill.

“I believe that the party’s nominee should be chosen – this is Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s opinion – that the party’s nominee should be chosen by members of the party.”

Bernie Sanders has been winning the independent vote nearly 2 to 1, giving him an advantage in open contests like Indiana’s open primary. Sanders says he wants change, but Schultz’s ideas are not what he’s talking about.

Bernie Sanders has done fairly well in the primaries considering his outsider status; Trump has crushed it. Still, it’s clear that the public wants a straightforward process driven by voters, not by party officials.

[Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images]