Secondly, the belief by many voters that the nomination processes is somehow unfair has led to questions about the legitimacy of the outcomes. Parties must balance competing goals of controlling their nominations, while trying to attract additional supporters by giving them a stake in the process. With three or more candidates running, it’s impossible to construct a voting procedure that fairly reflects all individual voter preferences. Therefore, a “dictator” (a person, a committee, or a set of rules) often influences the outcome in a way that makes the process seem undemocratic.

Both parties utilize a version of a “dictator” with their unpledged “super delegates,” although Democrats rely more heavily on them — a key reason why Bernie Sanders’ supporters have complained. Republicans use an additional “dictator” with winner-take-all primaries, rather than more closely tying voter preferences to the outcome with proportionality rules for awarding pledged delegates like the Democrats employ. By distributing delegates to several candidates, proportional primaries give more voters some skin in the game, but they often fail to produce a majority winner, especially as the numbers of candidates increase.

To make the nominating processes fairer, the parties could adopt rules that would more likely yield nominees who are reasonably acceptable to most voters. Two reforms would help: a) ranked choice/instant runoff voting, and b) approval voting.

In the former, voters rank all candidates from most to least preferred. Computerized runoff elections then eliminate least-preferred candidates by transferring their supporters’ preferences to remaining candidates until a majority winner emerges.

With approval voting, voters check any and all candidates they prefer. The candidate with the most “approvals” is the winner. No nominating system is perfect, but adopting these reforms would enhance the legitimacy of election outcomes, encourage more citizen participation, and minimize voter frustration.