alt Hacker NewsAm I missing something here? Perot was on the ballot in 1992, and he won a bunch of votes. IIRC he was the most successful independent candidate in modern times, by vote count.
Sanders ran an insurgent campaign while denigrating the party, and didn't win more votes. I seriously don't understand the argument that the person with fewer votes should win the nomination, although I am receptive to hearing a coherent articulation thereof. (Superdelegates did not enter the picture until tens of millions of votes were cast, with Sanders trailing by millions of votes.)
Perot dropped out, then reentered the race at the last minute. This cost him a lot of votes and the media framed him as unstable. He had many more votes before withdrawing.
Sanders was on track to win in 2015 but the media counted all superdelegates for Clinton throughout the campaign, costing him votes in later states where voters didn’t show up, assuming he lost. I guess this isn’t entirely the party’s fault and they did reform the system somewhat afterwards.