I think we can all agree that a lot needs to be fixed about our nominating process. Caucuses are undemocratic and produce only a fraction of the turnout of primaries. Superdelegates are also obviously undemocratic. The decentralized process of choosing dates for primaries/caucuses is also broken, leading this year to a fight over whether we will include two states that contain a tenth of the population.
My question is how can we fix this? Does the DNC have the power to make things better? As I understand it, state parties run the caucuses, while state governments run the primaries. Can we actually get the governments of the caucus states to go to primaries? I imagine if the state govt is controlled by Democrats, a request from the DNC and Democratic bigwigs might be successful. But what about states at least partially controlled by Republicans? (This actually seems to include a lot of the caucus states--Idaho, N. Dakota, Missouri, Minnesota, Utah, Nevada, etc.)
Is it at all feasible for the state parties to hold primaries? It sounds like it could be a nightmare--there are probably generally a lot more primary precincts than caucus ones, and there's the process of getting poll workers, voting machines, and ballots, as well as actually counting the ballots.
I'm not sure what can be done. But it's a shame that in a year in which so many new voters are getting into the process, what they're learning is that the system is convoluted to the point of farce.
The Republicans in MN are being total jerks about the possibility of changing to a primary. The Dem leader is all for it, but the Repub leader insists that even if they WERE to have a primary, it would still be non-binding and the Republicans would just choose their delegates at the state convention.
Republicans are just hopeless, and I really hope everyone else railroads them and does it anyway.
In WA it is the opposite: the voters had an initiative and set up a state-run primary, the Republicans decided to recognize the results for some of their delegates -- the Dems are not using the results at all, they are sticking to their caucus system.
So the local party can over-ride a state ordered primary if they want to.
Well, in WA state, this year, we have both. The DNCC is only using the caucus to determine who gets delegates...which is why it'll be interesting to see how the ballot voting turns out. If Obama wins by the same percentage at the ballot, than I'll reconsider my position...maybe caucuses are representative of the whole.
But, if the percentages are different...that's interesting and of concern to me as a democrat who doesn't want segments of the party who can't participate in a caucus for one reason or another from being disenfranchised.
In WA the voters ran a state initiative to establish a state primary, which was done and the state pays for it. But the WA Dem party refuses to consider that, they insist on using their caucuses instead.
So there must be some pretty heavy power structure in there, which it may not be practical to change. You might have to work your way up within the caucus system to get to the decision making level.
What we can do, is show the difference in results (caucuses 75% Obama, primary 50%) to the Superdelegates, and let them make their judgement about who the voters of WA really want.
And in states like Washington the state is holding a primary but the party wants to hold a caucus (why I'm not sure.) So, on Tuesday we'll be faced with yet another "problem" in the democratic nominating process because we'll probably get a different result from the primary than we did from the caucus. (I know many people who didn't caucus who voted in the primary. And, they all happened to vote Hillary.)
So, democrats seem to be a party that is disenfranchising voters left and right...ugh.
