2020 Iowa turnout might meet low turnout of 2016. Bad omen for November.

[Wrz]

31. It's a caucus

Caucuses are not a good judge of this. Let's wait until we have a few proper voting primaries before waving the banner of doom and gloom on turnout.

As a disabled person, I wouldn't be able to participate if my state held a caucus instead of regular ballot voting. I can barely be on my feet even leaning on a walker for more than 10 minutes at a time. I can't stand around in a school gymnasium for 2-4 hours and constantly move around. No matter how badly I want to participate I wouldn't be able to do it.

Caucuses need to go. I felt this way even before the mishap in Iowa. It's an archaic way of voting that excludes many groups of people. They are not accessible to people like me who have physical infirmities and also people who have children and/or a job that won't allow them time to stand around for hours.

Another factor is that some caucus precinct sites did not have enough chairs. I heard at some precincts Sanders supporters had to be turned away because there were no more chairs available. You don't have that problem with proper voting. And disabled people have absentee voting as an option as well so even the most infirm can still vote if it's not a caucus.

One more thing to consider is that Iowa is not very racially diverse. I think I saw one precinct that was in a mosque that had a large number of minorities. I think turnout is best measured in states that have a diverse population given minorities tend to vote blue.

Going forward, I think for Democrat primaries states with the most diverse populations should be the ones to go first in voting. Iowa most definitely should not be first -- no offense to Iowan Democrats.