If what Curly Haugland says is true, why do voters waste their time voting? I thought that was the hole point of voting? You vote for your party nominee then in the general election you vote for your President.

I was thinking the 1,237 magic number for Republic nominee was more of a "mercy rule" than anything. Meaning, once you've hit that, it's clear the debates and voting can stop because the year the clear nomination of the people. And if come June no one has hit 1,237 then whomever has the most would be the nominee. How is that not the scenario to be played?

I naively was under the belief that under a democracy the people chose the nominee's and the President.

If a nominee were to have a large delegate lead over someone and the party hands the nominee to someone else, how should the voting public respond? I think they'd be PISSED.

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there are definitely some big flaws in the election process that need to be resolved. This is one example. Other things that should be changed is to have all the primaries on the same day. And get rid of Winner take all for electoral votes.

Not sure what I would do. I would have a hard time voting for a candidate who lost in the primary elections, but would also have a hard time helping the other party by not voting or voting 3rd party.

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It's pretty hard but I almost a total libertarian and I cannot really get behind any candidate. It's frustrating.

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Here's the interesting bit most people gloss over (don't blame them; reading laws and policies and then understanding all implications is not easy): the nominee chosen does not need to have been part of the primary process.

I'm not an expert on US electoral law, but unless I'm missing something big, the wording is broad enough to actually allow a totally new GOP representative to be elected on the convention floor even if he/she was not part of any primary.

The biggest advantage of that route may be the fact that GOP leaders can say with a straight face they are not choosing someone the primary voters rejected, rather they are choosing someone the primary voters would have chosen all along.

Watching this play out is going to be really interesting. But it only happens if the GOP officials and donors can finally get their act together and make a real push to keep Trump from getting the majority of the delegates.

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Voting in the primaries is a clear indicator of who people are willing to vote for, what the demographics are, and even why people are voting for who they are in the exit polls. 99.9% of the time, the GOP will choose the candidate that more people are voting for because that translates to the best chance of winning the general election, which is the ONLY thing they are concerned with.

In the case of Trump, he has strong support within the party (which still baffles me) but he will get almost no moderates and in general matches up poorly with Hillary, and could very well permanently damage the GOP brand.