Can we get rid of caucuses?

[BlueCheese]

Last edited Sun Oct 25, 2015, 02:45 AM - Edit history (1)

Let me just be blunt. I dislike the idea of caucuses. They put up huge barriers to voter participation, are unfair to big segments of the population, are completely undemocratic, and would be blatantly unconstitutional if used for a general election. Every state should hold a primary election.

I've actually never lived in a state at caucus time, so I admit what I'm saying is based on secondhand knowledge. But as I understand it, the usual Iowa caucus process goes something like this:

1. You have to show up at your precinct, in person, at a fixed time, such as 7 pm. Just this fact alone should make anyone reject the whole notion of caucuses. What if you work a shift? Sorry, you don't count. What if you can't find a babysitter? Tough luck. What if you're disabled and can't leave your house? Should have thought of that first. What if you're deployed overseas? Thanks for your service, but no voting for you. What if you're out of town for work? No absentee ballots, sorry!

2. You go to the part of the room for your preferred candidate. Secret ballot? Nope! All your neighbors get to see who you support. Why wouldn't you want them to know, anyway? Do you have something to hide? (Actually, this is one place where the Republicans might be smarter than us. They use a secret ballot at their caucuses.)

3. For roughly 30 minutes, you have to endure other people trying to convince you to vote for their candidate. What if you're pretty well-informed and aren't going to change your mind? Just grin and bear it. Why, do you have something better to do?

4. If one or more candidates don't get enough supporters, then their supporters have about 30 minutes to realign. Sit tight!

5. Finally, about 90 minutes into it, a count is made, delegates are selected for the county caucuses, and you get to go home.

Quickly, let's compare that to the primary process:

1. You show up some time between 7 am and 8 pm, get a ballot, make your choice, and leave. The whole thing takes five minutes. If you can't make it that day, you send in an absentee ballot.

Which one gets more turnout, do you think? In 2008, when both parties had contested nominations, the average participation in the caucus states was... 6.8%. In Iowa, the target of an enormous amount of attention and get-out-the-vote efforts, the participation rate was... 16.3%. Washington had a rate of 0.9%. This compared with an average of 30.3% in primary elections. Data shows that in caucus states, turnout among people aged 30-44, the group most likely to have young children, was significantly lower than for other age groups.

(All numbers from this source.)

If any state made it as hard to vote in a general election as the parties make it to participate in a caucus, the ACLU and Justice Department come down on their heads so fast it would make your head spin. So can we get rid of these archaic, undemocratic, unrepresentative ways of choosing nominees already?

[elleng]

1. Good luck telling Iowa that.

[BlueCheese]

3. They can still go first, if they insist.

Just have a primary where everyone can vote.

[elleng]

5. NH would fight like bloody murder to maintain the FIRST PRIMARY!

As I recall, those 2 states regularly battle for FIRST!

[BlueCheese]

6. Okay, here's a compromise.

Take it away from both of them and give it to a state that actually has some cities and minorities. I dunno, how about North Carolina? Or let it rotate around.

To me, caucuses seem about as appropriate an idea these days as the Electoral College. Something that might have made sense at some point, but which are hopelessly antiquated now.

[elleng]

8. I won't disagree with you on the merits,

but I think this is a can of worms Dem party does NOT want to deal with, and as we've seen how DNC has(n't) dealt with 'debates' issue, I'd rather keep it out of their hands (for the time being, anyway.)

[BlueCheese]

11. I know.

If it were up to me, I'd get rid of delegates entirely. It would just be a state-by-state popular vote to choose the nominee. But you're right-- the DNC is very, very slow to change and adapt.

[Fumesucker]

23. North Carolina has the lowest union membership rate in the country and dropping

Great place to have a Democratic primary!



http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article9285041.html

North Carolina has the lowest union membership rate in the country.

According to a Labor Department report released last week, 1.9 percent of wage and salary workers in North Carolina were members of unions last year, down from 3 percent in 2013.

At the national level, the union membership rate was 11.1 percent in 2014, down 0.2 percent from the year before. At 24.6 percent, New York had the highest union membership rate. After North Carolina, the next lowest rate was South Carolina with 2.2 percent.

Of the states with union membership rates of 5 percent or less in 2013 -- seven of the 11 were in the South -- the Carolinas experienced the biggest drops in terms of percentage points in 2014. From 2013 to 2014, North Carolina lost 41,000 union members and South Carolina lost 28,000.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article9285041.html#storylink=cpy

[yeoman6987]

2. I and Hillary would agree with you

I am very sure that president Clinton would be finishing up had there not been caucus'

[BlueCheese]

4. Maybe. It's true Obama did a lot better in caucuses, but he won his fair share of primaries too.

It still would have been very close.

[liberal_at_heart]

7. I felt very traumatized by my first caucus. I felt bullied. Between the corruption of the two

parties and the horrible caucus experience, I can see why people don't vote. How about if we get a ballot in the mail(my state of WA does this) and we all vote for whoever the hell we want to vote for? Wouldn't that be blasphemous?

[BlueCheese]

9. Yes, it'd be like the worst of Internet message boards, but in real life, with your neighbors!

What could be better?

[liberal_at_heart]

12. You said it. Caucuses do feel like internet message boards only in person.

Only the most dedicated of voters are going to subject themselves to that kind of abuse. Everybody else is just going to stay home. Of course that may be what those in power want. They don't really want the majority of America to vote because if they did the majority of politicians would lose their jobs.

[sufrommich]

27. I imagine that anyone who's shy or an introvert would

feel uncomfortable.It sounds very aggressive.

[SheilaT]

10. I love caucuses.

I have lived in two caucus states, and in both places I got to be a delegate to the state convention. Alas, I didn't get beyond that point, but in a primary state I'd have simply cast my vote and that would be that. I really like the give and take of a caucus.

I do recognize that participating in a caucus can be harder, because the time frame is even more limited than in a primary, but there could probably be some way of working around that.

I would love someday to be a delegate to the national convention, and that will never happen in a primary state because I'm not sufficiently connected to the party insiders.

[BlueCheese]

13. That does sound like fun.

One advantage people talk about caucuses is that it rewards party activists. But is there a way we can do that while still keeping the high participation rate of primaries? Maybe allow absentee ballots?

[SheilaT]

15. Maybe there should be a series of caucuses over a twenty-four hour period.

The problem is that there's about a four hour window in which they take place, and if you're not free to attend in that short span of time, too bad.

My very first caucus was in Colorado in 1988. Ours was happening about two blocks from where we lived, and my husband went while I stayed home with our two young children. After about a half hour he called me and said to please show up, the kids would be welcome. So I did. And got to be a delegate to the next level. It was a very gratifying experience.

[BlueCheese]

16. I know another person who watched the kids in 2008 while her husband went to the caucus.

Seems like a dilemma a lot of parents face.

And maybe it's my introverted personality, too. I can see other people enjoying talking with fellow Democrats. I'd probably sit in my corner until they let me go home.

Anyway, the warm way in which you describe the experience gives me reason to reconsider. I think I still value high participation foremost, but I like the idea that a dedicated person such as yourself can be a delegate at a higher level.

Thanks for expanding my perspective.

[HereSince1628]

32. Do the IA caucuses actually have lower turnout rates?

Somehow I have a memory of IA republican caucuses getting 25% participation and dem caucuses getting ~30% participation among declared voters.

In WI our primary participation as a percent of eligible citizens has been in the 'teens' and we have open primaries.

I realize the differences between here and there muddy the comparison somewhat, but just as an impression, my impression has been that participation rates in IA are ok compared to neighboring states.

[BlueCheese]

38. That's probably a function of when they vote.

With so much attention focused on Iowa, and so much effort put into organized get-out-the-vote efforts, I feel like 30% is pretty low. As for Wisconsin, could it be that the nominees are frequently already decided by the time the process rolls around to there? Just guessing.

[BlueCheese]

14. And I hope you get to be a delegate someday. :)

[liberal_at_heart]

18. I'm glad you have had more positive caucus experiences than I have had.

[sufrommich]

28. I'd be willing to bet that the people who work the night shift can't

afford to "work around it". It's elitist and favors people who have the time and resources to attend.

[SheilaT]

30. People who work the night shift,

which I did most of my working life, get screwed royally on lots of things. Depending on the particular job, it's not uncommon to never get an extra day off for a holiday. When I was an airline ticket agent I worked five days a week(although that actually varied because of the shifts) fifty weeks a year. If a holiday happened to fall on my day off I was off. Otherwise I worked. Yes, I was paid time and a half for working the holiday itself, but it still worked out to five days a week -- or more if I had to come in to cover for a coworker who'd called in sick -- fifty weeks a year. People who are in an office five days a week and get weekends and holidays off don't quite understand.

So I understand what you're saying. Again, it's would be possible to hold caucuses over a longer period of time to accommodate shift workers or parents with small children, but then, especially the way Iowa gets an unwarranted amount of attention, it wouldn't be as dramatic as it currently is.

[sufrommich]

34. I worked afternoons for 10 years. It's a whole different life than

people who work days.

[SheilaT]

35. Yep. Especially if you always work holidays

and don't ever get another day off in lieu of, as I did. That goes even more if you're dealing with the travelling public, as I was, who take those holidays off as a God-given right and don't even recognize that real human beings are working while they are playing.

Federal employees in DC were the worst. I worked at National Airport, and at least back when I worked, they didn't get the day after Thanksgiving off as one of their holidays, but apparently each President could decided to grant it to them as an extra holiday so that the poor darlings didn't have to use up one of their precious days of leave. Which was vastly more generous, at least then, than most people ever got. Listening to them complain about that on the years they weren't just granted an extra day off at taxpayer expense was very annoying. Especially the year I worked afternoon shift until about midnight the day before Thanksgiving, thanks to delayed and cancelled flights, then had to be back at 6am for the morning shift. Plus, my whole shift I was standing in high heels on a concrete floor.

Made me tough, and made everything else I've ever done since, including childbirth, a piece of cake.

[sufrommich]

36. I hear ya! nt

[liberal_at_heart]

17. okay what the hell is this shit? I wanted to research whether WA would still have both

a caucus and a primary and it looks like the parties my be cancelling the primary here in WA. I hate this shit. The two parties suck. I swear it is no wonder why so many people don't vote. But I will vote, and if I have to drag my butt down to a caucus and listen to a bunch of crap in order to get to vote for my candidate I will, and this time I am stronger. This time I will not be bullied. This time I will vote for my candidate.


http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-2016-washington-state-presidential.html

[BlueCheese]

19. I remember in 2008...

... Washington had a caucus that selected all the delegates, as well as a primary that served no purpose and didn't count. And the primary had higher participation. By a lot.

According to Wikipedia, a total of 32,220 people, in a state of 7 million people, participated in the caucus that selected the delegates. That is a ridiculously tiny number of people. By contrast, 691,381 people voted in the primary that was completely meaningless.

In other words, over TWENTY TIMES as many people voted in the nonbinding primary than in the binding caucus. That's how much caucuses depress turnout.

[liberal_at_heart]

20. And that's exactly what the party leaders want. Between this and the suppression of

debates the Democratic Party is looking disgustingly corrupt.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

21. When we get rid of the electoral college.

Go to direct elections, where every single person's vote counts as much as every other single person's vote. Where 'winning states' is meaningless, and only winning the total vote matters.

[SheilaT]

31. Yes. I've been threatening for years not to bother

to vote for President because most of my adult life I've lived in a state where my vote really does not matter. As a Democrat living in Kansas for 18 years it was especially frustrating.

The EC is why they campaign the way they do, usually not ever bothering to visit a state that is clearly going to go for the other candidate. If we had direct elections it would be very, very different.

[BlueCheese]

39. That would be terrific too.

I wonder how the national popular vote project is going-- the one where a group of states with 270 electoral votes all decide to vote for the popular vote winner.

[Capt. Obvious]

22. No

[DCBob]

24. Does this benefit Hillary or Sanders in Iowa?

Although the Sanders crowd will be more aggressive, the Hillary bunch is more experienced and got steamrolled by Obama supporters in 2008.. I doubt they will let that happen again.

[sufrommich]

25. It's suppresses the vote. I can't imagine how anyone who supports

voter's rights can support caucuses.

[bigwillq]

26. I would not want to go through the caucuse process.

Takes up too much time that I don't have.

[Bluenorthwest]

29. Oregon Primary vote by mail, 2008. 71.8% of eligible voters registered, 58.3% voted in the Primary.

We get our ballots for 2 weeks and can vote at any convenient time during that period. Next year should be even higher with automatic registration in place. Our participation rates make their caucuses look virtually unattended by voters.

[BlueCheese]

37. That sounds like a great system.

[NurseJackie]

33. I'd like to see election day moved to a Saturday and made a national holiday.

[tritsofme]

40. Caucuses need to go yesterday. They are highly un-democratic, don't respect the secret ballot

And has been pointed, all the barriers to participation hurt the ability of working class folks to participate the most. All the hoops to participation are probably on net as discouraging if not more so, to marginal voters as the Republican voter ID laws. Requiring four hours to "caucus" is necessarily suppressing votes.

All delegates should be selected through a primary election with a secret ballot. These un-democratic caucuses have no place in the 21st century Democratic Party.