| > Yes they did. That's what elections are. You voted for representatives who you believed would exercise similar value judgments as your own to all the thousands of complicated situations and decisions that the government faces. You're assuming New York has democratic elections, which is a reasonable assumption if you don't live in New York, but is unfortunately very incorrect. New York government is not a democracy; the ruling parties have constructed a series of arcane, layered laws which allow the parties to essentially appoint people to nominally-elected positions, which bypasses the entire spirit of democracy[0]. The parties are controlled by local private clubs, which have hefty membership fees (my local club starts at $1000/year, which I could technically afford if I wanted to, but many of my neighbors could not). Unlike most states, we don't have the right to have direct ballot initiatives. We don't even have the right to vote against unopposed candidates if we don't like them - if a candidate runs unopposed in a primary[1], the primary is cancelled altogether. So, for example, Kirsten Gillibrand literally did not have a primary election in 2018 - she won the nomination with a total of zero votes. [0] as just one example, just the tip of the iceberg: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/nyregion/new-york-politic... [1] and remember, the party gets to approve whether a candidate receives a primary challenge in most state races |
This makes sense. Primaries are internal party business. It's totally up to them to decide how they select their candidates.
The general elections are where the citizens get their say.