--- title: How to Fix America's Shambolic Elections description: 'Do our candidates reflect the general population better than other democracies? That’s a hard no,' writes Laura Thornton. canonical: https://time.com/6588951/how-to-fix-us-primary-process/ author: Laura Thornton article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-01-29T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:35.914Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How to Fix America's Shambolic Elections og:description: Do America's candidates reflect the general population better than other democracies? Not really, writes Laura Thornton og:url: https://time.com/6588951/how-to-fix-us-primary-process/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt03934835973424f4/698a4430db298726f0269c34/NH-Primary-Voting-Process.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: NH-Primary-Voting-Process og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Fix America's Shambolic Elections twitter:description: Do America's candidates reflect the general population better than other democracies? Not really, writes Laura Thornton twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt03934835973424f4/698a4430db298726f0269c34/NH-Primary-Voting-Process.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # How to Fix America's Shambolic Elections > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=e922d284-4c20-4f21-b47d-f6e0dd70c6c6&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How AI May Meddle With The Election Year [Watch (HLS stream): How AI May Meddle With The Election Year](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Pe8KJmwX.m3u8) (4:21)  _Published 2024-02-23. The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT has increased the potential for a wide range of attackers to target elections around the world in 2024, according to a new report by cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike. Experts on AI explain how it may meddle with the 2024 election._ Jan 29, 2024 12:00 PM UTC  Voters cast their ballots in the New Hampshire presidential primary election at The Barn at Bull Meadow on January 23, 2024 in Concord, New Hampshire. Voters cast their ballots in the New Hampshire presidential primary election at The Barn at Bull Meadow on January 23, 2024 in Concord, New Hampshire. Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images by [Laura Thornton](https://time.com/author/laura-thornton/) ## Laura Thornton Jan 29, 2024 12:00 PM UTC For two decades in Asia and the former Soviet Union, I worked for democracy-promotion organizations, a central aim of which was bolstering democratic political parties. I trained them on internal party structure, platform development, constituent outreach, and, of course, candidate selection. With typical American hubris and pride, I often nudged parties toward the inclusive American primary system as a model for selecting candidates. “Primaries are the most inclusive and, theoretically, democratic,” I’d think to myself. “They allow everyday citizens to choose candidates rather than limiting this decision to party leaders.” Expanding candidate selection to include more stakeholders made perfect sense. In the [countries](https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/1681%5Fasia%5Fpolparties%5F050404%5F0.pdf) where I worked, a small group of party leaders selected candidates without transparency or competition, frequently based on the candidate’s financial contributions. This opaque process failed to provide nominees who were representative of or accountable to the public, stifling the competition of ideas and values. Unsurprisingly, in turn, the public disdained parties and politics. ### More from TIME In one series of workshops I organized in Bangkok for party leaders from eight Asian countries, I brought in a former American politician who lectured on the virtues of “letting the people decide,” extolling the glory of the Iowa caucuses and grassroots primary campaigns. Returning to the United States, however, I confronted our own profound distrust of politicians and our democratic system. Is our primary process truly exemplary? Despite being more inclusive than other democratic systems, American primaries often fail to produce the most representative, issue-focused, or accountable candidates, frequently tilting the scale towards extremism, eroding consensus and civility. In 2016, many Republican leaders [watched in horror](https://time.com/magazine/us/4447970/august-22nd-2016-vol-188-no-7-u-s/) as a former reality television show host descended an escalator to announce a campaign in which he deviated significantly from Republican orthodoxy on multiple policies, such as [foreign policy and national security](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/11/trump-foreign-policy-national-security-defense-spending), hurled [never-heard-before insults](https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/2016-election-best-insults-230794) at and lies about his fellow GOP competitors, and courted the most hateful and aggrieved elements in the party. Polling in early 2016 by the _Washington Post_ showed Trump had a large [net negative](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/13/poll-views-of-trump-carson-and-bush-dim-as-christie-and-cruz-rise/) favorability among Republicans.. In fact, he won only 44% of the primary voters, but it was enough to seal the nomination. American parties, unique among democracies, heavily favor public participation. But do our candidates reflect the general population better than other democracies? That’s a hard no. Our [representatives](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/05/the-new-congress-is-80-percent-white-80-percent-male-and-92-percent-christian/) are predominately white, male, Christian, and rich. The individualistic nature of our primaries requires connections and money, as with many other majoritarian races elsewhere. Women are far [better represented](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/workingpapers/femm/w10/2%5Fen.htm), for example, in countries where the party determines candidates, as in Norway or Sweden and proportional electoral systems, which allows the party to place women in winnable spots on the candidate lists. Does the inclusivity of our process yield more accountable candidates? That’s another no. They are certainly not beholden to the collective ideas, values, or platform of the party. The Republican Party, for example, has such compromised relevance or control that the Republican platform in 2020 was essentially ‘[whatever Donald Trump says](https://time.com/5884030/republican-party-of-donald-trump/).” Though many bemoan our extreme “partisan divide,” it is more _tribal_ than partisan, based on competing political and cultural realities. The Right is dominated by a cult-like loyalty to a leader, regardless of his position on traditional party issues (small government, foreign policy hawkishness), who will be “strong” and “fight” against perceived grievances and others. The Left is mobilized around being against this leader, with indeed some issue differences on abortion, Ukraine, and guns. **_Read More:_** [_The Biden Campaign Must Be About More Than Trump_](https://time.com/6588528/biden-campaign-how-to-win-reelection/) Moreover, candidates aren’t necessarily more accountable to their district’s majority. Primaries only require candidates to compete for a minority of voters—the most fervent party base that turns out. This provides an opening for extreme, charismatic figures, rather than consensus-building and coalitions. They are thus accountable to a small party base and to their donors, as primaries require extensive individual fundraising, unlike party selection. After securing this small group of base voters in the primary, most candidates face zero competition. In fact, only [10% of our House seats](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3897518-only-10-percent-of-house-races-were-competitive-in-midterms-advocacy-group/#:~:text=A%20new%20report%20found%20that,were%20%E2%80%9Ccompetitive%E2%80%9D%20in%202022.), according to a 2022 Fix Our House Redistricting report, are considered competitive thanks to a two-party system, gerrymandering, and majoritarian, winner-takes-all elections. Much hinges on the party’s inherent quality—its internal democracy, representativeness, and inclusive decision-making—as well as the public’s trust in the party system and diversity of party options to determine whether party-led selection is a form of negative gatekeeping or a healthy practice. Without some gatekeeping, the party’s fundamental purpose is under question. Ideally, parties should serve as a collective, aggregating ideas, values, and policies of constituencies to advance a cohesive, shared agenda and prevent the descent into individual-driven chaos and appeals to extremism. There is nothing stopping American parties from self-reform to rethink the balance. Introducing more rigorous candidate screening prior to primaries could be a start. This would likely upset voters on both sides of the aisle given the low trust Americans have in political parties. Parties could also certainly abandon the winner-takes-all approach in favor of proportional voting in all state primaries, as the[ Democratic Party has done](https://www.270towin.com/content/thresholds-for-delegate-allocation-2020-democratic-primary-and-caucus). For example, if the Republicans used proportional allocation in South Carolina in 2016, Trump’s 33% would not have given him all the delegates—it would be divided proportionally with Ted Cruz (22%) and Rubio (22%). Preferably, parties could adopt ranked-choice voting (already used in some cities and states), allowing electors to sort their preferences, reallocating vote choices according to these rankings if no candidate achieves a majority. This system encourages candidates to seek broad-based support, ensuring the eventual winner represents a majority preference. For instance, the Republican Party [employed ranked choice](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-ranked-choice-voting-saved-the-virginia-gop-from-itself/2021/11/05/6d1aa738-3dc2-11ec-8ee9-4f14a26749d1%5Fstory.html) voting in Virginia’s gubernatorial selection process, which led to Glenn Youngkin’s nomination over the more extreme candidate, Amanda Chase. Regrettably, [recent moves](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2023/0801/Winner-takes-all-California-Republicans-modify-electoral-strategy) by the GOP, possibly under pressure from the Trump campaign, [double down](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2023/0801/Winner-takes-all-California-Republicans-modify-electoral-strategy) on a winner-takes-all approach. There is no Goldilocks formula for the “best” party nominating process. It’s more about finding a balance among various factors with a focus on outcomes. Candidate selection must not only be inclusive but also promote broad societal representation, coherent policy goals over individualistic agendas, and civility and consensus over extreme minoritarianism. Such a gargantuan task is akin to changing the course of an entire naval fleet. Reimagining America’s candidate-selection process into one that fosters broad acceptance is an ambitious but necessary endeavor that could redefine the trajectory of our democracy. ## Transcript 2024 is going to be the first AI election that we've had in the United States and we should expect that there will be attempts to use AI to attack our election infrastructure to further poison the information environment. The 2024 election will be more risky than before because of artificial intelligence its own President Polk's are very focused on RD pics and you fix could be used to make it look like candidates are other officials are staying something that they never said. We've already had that other countries elections in Slovakia. We saw a debate audio used against one of the candidates in the weekend before the election. And now we have a lot of the power generated by a generator internet and social media are filled with AI generated content in done because of the way those content is generated by AI. Call it was have certain biases. The biases will manifest in those content in previous elections would do see sociopaths. We're used to spread misinformation. There are concerns that they make it easier for Bad actors to fool election workers by imitating a people who work in elections in a phone call or in an email and getting election workers to provide information that they shouldn't be providing voter. Suppression is another area where I think people are worried that day. I made may be helpful. We have a history in the Uso robocalls being used to confuse voters about went about social media being used by false information. So maybe that voters don't show up or are scared to vote. I am worried that a I may become yet another one. That the dangers of AI and then start to believe that AI has taken over our elections or maybe rely on a i to give them information. I used all of the main commercial chat box and ask them questions about the elections in different states to test them and all of them provided some wrong information a little bit of a flip side. I think it's really important but would say something called the wires dividend if you think back to the 2012 election, which was Romney vs. Obama or the 2016 election, which was Trump versus Hillary Clinton in both of those cases. There were audios that leaps of one of the major candidates, you know, she was down in Palm Beach. If something like that comes out in the future that is legitimate. It's going to be easier for candidates to deny that a video or audio of them is actually real It's critical to stop double check yourself and and do research to find out whether or not what you're seeing on social media is accurate a lot of election officials and other politicians on social media have been verified the watermarking and requiring some kind of authentication of video audio images that appear on social media and long-term Year all of the security measures that we talked about that we need to put in place to defend our elections. We have to double down on them and we have to invest further over the course of the next few months to make sure that the system is as resilient as possible. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6588951/how-to-fix-us-primary-process/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6588951/how-to-fix-us-primary-process/"},"headline":"How to Fix America's Shambolic Elections","datePublished":"2024-01-29T12:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:50:35.914Z","description":"\"Do our candidates reflect the general population better than other democracies? 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