This year's Democratic primaries are going to prompt changes.
We've all been watching what's going on and not only in the individual states, but on our social media feeds and at places like DU. It's not such a pleasant thing to observe, really, and people have taken notice. Here are some of the things that are likely to change before the next presidential election year, I think:
1. Several states will switch from primary caucuses to primary elections - In response to unbalanced results from primaries in many states and poor turnout, state legislatures are considering moving to primary elections. Minnesota is one of those, and the bill making that change is just about to pass in our legislature, on a bi-partisan basis. Why? Because less than 2% of eligible voters went to their precinct caucuses. It's not a fair system.
2. More states will emphasize early voting - We've all seen how useful voting by mail at the convenience of voters has become, in states like Oregon. Turnouts are much higher and vote counting is simplified, and can better be monitored and verified. This trend has expanded into other states and will likely expand even further by 2020.
3. More closed or semi-closed primaries will be the rule - Open primaries this year have been subject to manipulation by factions and even other parties. This is a Party decision by each, really, but changes must be approved by the national party, too. Much analysis will be done following 2016, and I expect to see a rise in the number of states that abandon open primaries.
4. The current use of unpledged delegates will change - I can't predict how it will change, but I expect to see that system altered to rely far more on pledged delegate and popular vote counts. We'll have to wait and see what happens on that stage.
5. Various Internet political and social venues will change how they operate - Although it's difficult to predict what those changes might be, it's clear that abuses are rife on the Internet. DU is planning changes, as can be learned by reading replies from our admins in the Ask the Administrators forum here. How this site is moderated is going to change. The experimental jury system is going to change. DU is going to return to a rules-based community standard, and that's going to eliminate most of the personal attacks and outrageous posts that have remained on view. Similar changes are likely at a number of other venues, as well, and major social media sites like Facebook are almost certainly considering changes, as well, to make their sites more friendly for their users.
Those are some of the things I think will happen. They're my opinion. If you think something else will happen, based on the experience from this year's primaries, please share them in this thread. I think it's time to start thinking about what needs to change before the 2020 election cycle, so let's talk about that.
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