ELECTIONS The little-noticed change that could boost Biden and hurt Bernie in 2020

[pnwmom]

19. Prepare to be shocked. In WA we have caucuses but they don't issue many absentee ballots.

There are very limited circumstances that allow for them. My out of state student couldn't qualify without lying. I attended mine and there was a disproportionate number of young, white males.

Caucuses are elitist, because they require the participants to have the free time to spend hours (sometimes on your feet) debating politics on at least one Saturday (unless you are elected to be a delegate to subsequent events). Some caucus sites are more than an hour from where voters live. And not everyone has the available time OR the eagerness to debate politics with impassioned people -- whereas a primary ballot can be filled out at the kitchen table and mailed in.

That's why the participation is much higher in our primaries. Unfortunately, our party voted to ignore the will of the people -- expressed in a voter-approved referendum to switch to a primary -- and so chooses all its electors in the caucuses, rather than in the primary. (Our primary is called a "beauty contest."

The Republicans agreed to go with the primary system the voters approved -- but the Dems didn't. So in 2016 WA Democrats gave all its electors to the caucus winner, the LOSER of the primary campaign, Bernie Sanders.

What a travesty.