No matter whom we support, let's agree to get rid of caucuses.

[RandySF]

As a resident of Michigan and California I've always been fortunate to live in states that held presidential primaries. As a matter of fact, I don't even have to walk to the voting booth, I will just mail in my ballot. With the exception of what happened in Maricopa County, AZ and the awful voter ID laws in red states, the process of voting and reporting have been relatively smooth in the primaries. Compare this to scheduling a caucus where people have to find time to get off work, find childcare, sit around for a few hours just so you can cast a vote and go home. And that's assuming the people organizing the event know what they're doing. It's time to pressure the state parties and state legislatures to finally ditch the antiquated system and go to primaries in all 50 states.

[phleshdef]

1. I think we should just go all popular vote and keep the Super-delegates around for emergencies only.

You know like if the nominee dies on the way to the convention or something, otherwise, straight up primaries, most popular vote wins.

[SusanCalvin]

4. Ditto. nt

[bettyellen]

53. I thought it was not by popular vote, but by assignment of (regular) delegates in each district...

and if voter number increase suddnly in a district, then delegates are reapportioned?

Whatever we do, I really think we should have the same minimum standard nationwide. Man, do we need a better Supreme Court to get that.

[basselope]

2. I'd rather do away with political parties and forget the entire "primary" system.

[sadoldgirl]

3. You cannot get rid of them for one big

reason:Money.

I was informed after questioning our caucus procedure
that the legislature considered the cost too high during
times of budget problems.

Thus after years of primaries they went back to the
caucus, which has to be paid for by the parties.

I know, that it stinks, but only the state legislature
could change that, unless you and I are insisting
on a state constitutional amendment. Those are
not easy to pass.

[joshcryer]

14. This is the exact reason Colorado didn't return to primaries.

Caucases are super cheap to run, practically volunteer affairs, pen and paper calculations, using public spaces like churches and schools.

[JonLeibowitz]

23. My uncle (from CO) tells me they have an enormous surplus due to the marijuana taxes. Is this true?

He was upset it was a caucus too.

[joshcryer]

25. There was an effort in 2015 to bring back the primaries.

But it was seen as too expensive and the Republicans control the State Senate by one vote and it never made it to a vote, if I recall correctly.

The caucuses this time around were a nightmare (people were actually shut out from the caucuses) and there is now a push to go back to primaries, as least for unaffiliated voters: http://www.9news.com/news/politics/colorado-should-move-to-presidential-primary-parties-agree/64971841

(This would be a boon for me because I had to change to Democrat to caucus.)

[pnwmom]

50. Does Colorado have referendums? We approved primaries by a referendum,

so the state was required to have them.

Then the Democratic party went to court to insist on using caucuses for choosing delegates, and won.

So the Republicans have a real primary, and we have a meaningless "beauty contest" that assigns no delegates.

[LiberalFighter]

16. That is right.

If states are really concerned about costs such as Arizona they would combine their regular primary with the primary for president.

Arizona elections are:
March 22 (Presidential primary)
May 17 (Special election)
August 30 (Primary)
November 8 (General)


They could had combined the two primaries and possibly the special into one.

[whirlygigspin]

5. Just get rid of the voters-and try a hunger games format

You could create a hunger games pay per view tv show where all the candidates get dropped in and the last one standing wins--it would get great ratings and the media would take in billions!

Go sector 7

[Luciferous]

43. Lol

[dogman]

6. That's the decision of the state Party, it is a local choice.

Apparently State Parties have rights too.

[RandySF]

7. Right, but we can push them to change.

[dogman]

8. Don't be starting no revolution.

[dogman]

13. Seriously, as noted above, it's about money.

In Iowa for instance this is like a quadrennial super bowl event. The political season comes between harvest and planting. As you wrote, antiquated, but antiques is still business there.

[Cheese Sandwich]

9. I think we should have constant caucuses that meet all the time. You can vote absentee if you want.

It is hard for people to show up in person. So an absentee ballot solves that.

But if people want to have face to face democracy, that should be allowed. That way we can all see the votes being counted. We shouldn't trust electronic vote counting.

[RandySF]

11. Michigan had a caucus in 2004 and I voted online.

[onehandle]

10. Only registered Democrats should be picking our candidates.

Not so-called independents and certainly not Republicans.

[RandySF]

12. Sure. Closed primaries.

[eridani]

38. That can happen only when there is resitration by party

WA State sticks with caucuses for two reasons
1. To avoid Republican input into Dem candidate selection
2. The attract new, active party members.

[dogman]

15. Democrats against democracy.

Great slogan.

[onehandle]

17. Cool story, bro. nt

[dogman]

20. Cool story is working to grow Party and GOTV.

Stop the vote must be a new method, but whatever.

[NuclearDem]

19. Primaries are party events.

They exist to allow the party to decide who they want representing their platform in the general election.

Why should another party's members or unaffiliated voters have a say in that?

[dogman]

21. I guess we did it wrong in the past.

We sought to expand the Party and GOTV. Funny it seemed to work as we turned our County blue. When I vote, I pick which Party I want to vote in. I am then registered to vote in the General election. I go on election day and vote. It's not too complicated. You do realize that since the Party dumps the cost of their Primary on the State, the State and/or Local Commission also conducts other votes on those days. We have always had problems because people have to choose which race they will vote in. The Party can choose to hold their Primary in whatever fashion they choose. They could go online.

[RandySF]

29. I support closed primaries

[pat_k]

36. Why should a state have political party affiliation as part of voter registration?

State governments have no business being involved in political party business.

When you declare your preference for a party's candidates, whether in a primary or caucus, you are declaring your preference for that party. That should be enough. Your vote is your membership card.

Suppose I'm unaffiliated in a state that requires declaration of party affiliation as part of registration. And suppose I can only participate in a party's primary if I'm registered as a member of that party. And suppose the deadline for making any changes is a few weeks before the primary. And suppose, in the last weeks, when the candidates start seriously campaigning, and volunteers are out there making the case for their candidate, I decide I want to see Democratic candidates elected.

By my decision, I'm declaring myself a Democrat.

But, the deadline for changing my registration with the state has passed. So it's "screw you." The Dems don't want to know which candidate you prefer.

Sure doesn't seem right to me.

[Karma13612]

39. +10. In NY state

The deadline for making changes to party affiliation is SIX MONTHS.

Yup, I agree, that is totally exclusionary.

And NY's primary is coming up soon. I hope to hear more about it. I am all set with my registration and party affiliation but lots of Independents aren't happy.

But here on DU, many will not agree with us. They feel it is party over any specific candidate and that closed exclusionary primaries are just duckie. No wonder we have low voter turn out and disenfranchisement.

[mythology]

18. Caucuses do suck

Voting should be easy. Caucuses are inherently not.

[cosmicone]

22. If there were no caucuses

Bernie would have lost all the states except NH and VT.

[JonLeibowitz]

24. The people of michigan thank you for forgetting about them, as your candidate has since they voted.

Only Bernie continues to talk about the tragedy that is Flint and has a national strategy for repairing our crumbling infrastructure.

[RandySF]

28. He also won Oklahoma

[Blue_In_AK]

26. I used to feel that way,

but the more I think about it, the more I appreciate that Alaska is a caucus state. Less chance for cheating.

[DeadLetterOffice]

59. But they're SO disenfranchising to the disabled, elderly, parents, etc.

[Blue_In_AK]

61. Yes, that's true.

If they could clean up elections to the point where you could really trust the results, I would be all for them, but at least here in Alaska we've had hinky elections all across the board - from city elections to national - since at least 2002. It's kind of discouraging.

[DeadLetterOffice]

62. Yes, discouraging is a good word for it all. n/t

[LostOne4Ever]

27. I agree, and superdelegates need to go with them. nt

[Buzz cook]

30. I see no compelling reason to get rid of caucuses nt

nt

[DeadLetterOffice]

60. If you were disabled, you probably would.

[Buzz cook]

63. Caucuses are held at public venues

which by law are accessible. Further any democratic organization will do anything it can to help a handicapped person attend.

Even if a person is house bound they can fill out a candidate preference form which acts like an absentee ballot in the general election or primaries. Although it is too late for this caucus.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/16/1502250/-Washington-State-Caucus-Absentee-Ballot-Information

[DeadLetterOffice]

64. It's not really the accessibility of the venue...

...although that looked likely to be an issue with some of the caucus location pictures I saw in Iowa. (Also - wheelchair access is NOT the only form of accommodation needed for many disabled persons. Everything from lack of seating to overwhelming sensory levels can be a barrier for a disabled person, depending on their particular issue.)

The worst problem is the incredibly long hours required to participate. I for one could never last through a four-hour caucusing process. I doubt I'd even survive two hours.

However, if absentee participation is in fact available AND counts in the final results as fully as in-person participation, then my objection to caucuses vs primaries has been addressed and I will disparage them no more.

[CoffeeCat]

31. I love the transparency of a caucus

and believe me, cheaters and liars HATE caucuses, because they are much, much harder to steal.

It can be done, though--as evidenced by the shit show that commenced in my state of Iowa.

The problem is---cheaters and liars. If you have cheaters and liars, and people who are willing to cheat and lie for the candidate--then all bets are off.

Your caucus will be a shit show. A farce.

In 2008, we had NOT ONE problem in the Iowa caucuses, with record turnout.

This year--a shitshow. A shitshow of cheating at the precinct level, all the way up to our Iowa Democratic Party head saying that there would be NO examination of the Iowa Caucus results. Never mind that her license plate says, "HRC2016". She only opened up the caucus process to correct a few found errors after pressure mounted after The Des Moines Register wrote the scathing editorial, "Something Stinks in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses." They corrected errors that people began bringing forward.

However, people found those errors because detail-oriented Bernie precinct captains compared the actual results with the Iowa Democratic Party results that were listed on their website in a PDF document. That document was taken down 5 days after the Iowa Caucus...so guess what? No way for anyone to find additional errors.

So....if you have liar/cheater minions who are willing to cheat--all bets are off. Welcome to the shit show.

Otherwise--caucuses are transparent and you don't have to deal with the cheating and dirty tricks that can happen with electronic voting machines.

[pnwmom]

33. All caucuses are messed up. It's built into their DNA. You just noticed more this year

because things didn't go the way you wanted.

[CoffeeCat]

44. Yes, things didn't go my way

because the process was an unfair shit show. From the night of the caucus to two weeks ago at the debacle Polk County Convention where the process took 11 hours to count us. Eleven hours of wearing us down and telling Sanders supporters that they could leave early.

So yeah. I'm a little disappointed. Just a little bit.

I could accept a Hillary win. That's not the point. What I can't accept is cheating.

I saw it at my own caucus.

I saw it after the caucuses, when my fellow Iowans came forward to the Iowa Democratic party to say, "Hey! I happened to look at the precinct results on the PDF on your website, and you guys reported the numbers wrong! Can we get the errors changed?". Andy McGuire (the woman whose license plate reads "Hillary 2016&quot adamantly refused to review any numbers, even though Iowans were coming forward and saying there were errors. It was only after the entire Des Moines Editorial Board wrote a piece, "Something Smells in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses" that McGuire caved to pressure and allowed those errors to be corrected.

But guess what? After those errors were corrected, the PDF was immediately removed from the Iowa Democratic Party front page.

No one could detect any errors any more. Aren't they so fucking clever?

Don't tell me that my issue is that "things didn't go the way you wanted." Our entire process was turned into a mockery. I believed in it a couple of months ago. I was so proud of our caucuses. Now I don't. That's a bit loss for me--as I've been a lifelong Democrat and a volunteer in the caucus system for many cycles.

I could have gotten over a 10 point loss for Bernie in Iowa. You move on from a loss. What I can't accept is that grown adults are corrupt who don't give a damn about "We The People" and following the rules.

You don't know what in the hell you're talking about when it comes to me.

Caucuses are as good as the people running them. Same with voting machines. Voting machines and caucuses are tools. However, they are shit shows and inferior tools when you have soulless, cheating hacks in charge. That's the bottom line.

No problem with the Iowa caucuses in 2008, with record turnout. This year--shit show on steroids.

[pnwmom]

47. Unfairness is built into the system.

Any system that prevents many people from voting is unfair, and caucuses are designed to do that. If you work during those hours, are an out of state college student (like my Bernie supporter son who can't vote there because then he'd lose state benefits here), or have some other reason for not being able to spend hours caucusing at that particular time (other than very limited exceptions) then you can't caucus.

Even if you can get to your precinct caucus, you won''t get a secret ballot. If you don't want your spouse or parent or employer to know who you're voting for -- tough. And your vote won't be counted unless your candidate reaches a threshold. If your candidate does get enough votes to be assigned a delegate, it's still not fair because the number of people each delegate represents varies from precinct to precinct. One delegate could represent 15 people at one precinct and 50 at another -- in the same election. There is no such thing as one-person-one-vote in a caucus. Some votes are worth a lot more than others.

To all this basic unfairness gets added the situations you described or others that I've seen occur. For example, the "faithless delegate." Joe Blow can see that his favorite, Candidate A, is not going to get enough votes so he switches to join the supporters of Candidate B. The supporters of Candidate B like their candidate enough to vote for him, but not to want to spend another Saturday participating in the next level of caucus. So Joe Blow volunteers to be that delegate, representing the people who wanted Candidate B. Then, when he gets to the next caucus, he decides to stand up for Candidate A after all. He is a faithless delegate.

Or supporters for Candidate B can just show up at the next level of caucus, and pretend they've been elected. When the numbers don't add up, someone will ask for a show of credentials, which slows everything down and results in dozens of people leaving. It can't be determined whether they left because they got tired of waiting or because they didn't have credentials to show.

Caucuses are a big fat unfair mess that INVITE fraud and should be eliminated everywhere. The voters in my state voted to end them, and my state party -- to its disgrace -- went to court to overturn the will of the people and to keep its unfair caucus system. So the Repubs actually use a primary for selecting delegates while Dems are stuck with this unfair, elitist, exclusive caucus system.

Before Iowa I warned people here of the kinds of problems that would occur. Few worried because they were so sure Bernie would prevail. Whether or not your candidate seems to benefit, the system -- "smoke filled rooms" of insiders and politicos -- is inherently unfair and should be replaced with primaries -- everywhere.

[NuclearDem]

34. "Transparency of a caucus" = "no secret ballot"

Plus the audacity to complain about cheating and stealing while defending one of the most undemocratic election methods in existence.

[pnwmom]

32. I agree. They are deliberately designed to make voting as inconvenient as possible,

and to limit participation. And even for the people who do attend, there is no principle of one-person-one-vote. Depending on which precinct you're in, a delegate may represent 10 people or 50 people -- in the same election.

All of the problems were demonstrated in the very first Iowa caucus and they haven't changed.

[pat_k]

35. Washington State Dems...

...seem pretty happy with their caucuses. I relocated to Seattle last year and am looking forward to my first caucus.

Also, you don't have to go to have your preference recorded. From the Washington State Democrats guide:

However, those who are unable to attend due to religious observance, military service, disability, illness or work schedule may submit a “surrogate affidavit” form prior to the Precinct Caucus...

[pnwmom]

54. No, they are NOT. WA state Dems helped initiate and pass a referendum to replace caucuses

with a statewide primary. This referendum passed with strong support from voters of both parties.

But the party itself went to court to insist on its right to keep caucuses.

Haven't you noticed that there is a primary, too? It's a meaningless beauty contest for the Dems but a real primary for the Republicans, because the other party decided to acknowledge the will of the people and the Democrats opposed the people's choice.

Decades ago, all states used caucuses. But starting in the 70's people in states across the country started pushing to change to the fairer system of primaries. States like WA are clinging to the old "smoke filled rooms" of insiders and politicos -- minus the smoke.

And you DO have to attend to have your vote count, unless you fit in one of those exceptions. If you get sick and can't an affidavit in time, you're out of luck. And if you are an out of state college student, you don't qualify. (My son couldn't vote in his college state because then he would lose his benefits of being a state resident here. And he can't vote in our caucuses because he'll be out of state.)

And if you're not disabled, but you just don't have the stamina for participating for several hours, you're out of luck. And if you don't want to have to choose your vote publicly -- if you don't want your spouse or employer to know who you're voting for -- too bad.

WA state is filled with residents who voted to get rid of the caucus system, so please don't assume we want them, just because people are going to the trouble of participating in them. I'll be there, and so will my husband, but not because we want to. It's the only way to vote, and we do want to vote.

[w4rma]

37. I'd rather get rid of super-delegates. (nt)

[akbacchus_BC]

40. How about proportional representation, wouldn't that be better?

These caucuses cost money and for an election process to run for almost one year is too costly, especially when a candidate cannot get enough funding to continue to run, for example, Mr. O'Malley.

[Bluenorthwest]

41. Election processes are State decisions, my State has no caucus so my opinion is not relevant.

Nothing I can do to 'get rid' of a caucus anymore than I can 'get rid' of polling places and one day voting that other States are so deeply in love with.

[MoonRiver]

42. I couldn't even get to my caucus this year.

My, at the time, pain riddled body simply could not cope with the stress of attending. If my state had primaries, I could have voted early by mail. Problem solved. Caucuses are inherently unfair for the disabled and bed ridden.

[gollygee]

45. We should all have primaries, and all on the same day. One Super Tuesday that everyone

Can participate in.

[Betty Karlson]

46. Caucasus are harder to rig, so I have my doubts about your proposal. eom

[pnwmom]

51. Caucuses are easier to rig. That's why they exist. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

48. I agree. Let's have one national open primary with mail in votes.

The candidates can choose, or not choose, to declare their affiliation with any party or no party.

[DanTex]

49. I agree. No more caucuses. Make it easy to vote.

[ViseGrip]

52. Right now, with the electronic/voter roll fraud, county caucus heads is best for now.

[Major Hogwash]

55. We should all use Windows 10.

And vote online.

That was Bill Gates' idea.

[Blue_In_AK]

57. NOOOOOOO to the Windows 10

It accidentally downloaded to my computer and messed it up so bad my tech guy said he'd never seen anything like it. Windows 10 is one giant virus.

[Agschmid]

56. Yup.

[Surya Gayatri]

58. K & R. Thanks for posting.

[Dem2]

65. I agree

Caucuses are extremely un-democratic and out of step with today's society - caucuses need to become a thing of the past.