[I'm going to leave this sticky. A big story not covered by our famously free press? Incroyable! And you'd think they'd want to the story covered before the TX convention this week....]
[After I started this post, Wampum posted the El Paso incident reports,* a few of which this post puts on the record. And it took me too long to finish because of the all-to-typical sort of RL issues a DFH
like me would have....]
Let me start with my own caucus experience. My caucus--perhaps I should say the caucus I attended--was held on a Sunday, in the afternoon, in a high school gym; I live near a college town, and I stood in line for an hour before I got in. Right off the bat, I could see that the caucus system discriminated: Although the line was full of college students -- many of them wearing Obama paraphernalia and working the line for votes -- there were (of course) no sick people and very few older people, and very few people with kids. In fact, the woman I was in line with, who had a hip replacement, wasn't able to stay through the vote. It was clear just by eyeballing the line that caucus attendance didn't represent the town -- and that's before we get to other people who can't attend: People without cars (there's no public transportation on Sunday), people who have to work (my friend with the bleeding feet, a Hillary supporter, works 7 days a week), as well as people with child- or elder-care issues, and people who had to be out of town that day, whether on business, vacation, or serving in the military.
The caucus itself was not especially abusive. We all sat in the bleachers to be counted off. The chair, an Obama supporter complete with sticker, did treat the initial caucus, that included Edwards and Kucinich supporters, in perfunctory "Let's get this over with" fashion, and did make the minority [not Obama] supporters walk down from the bleachers onto the floor both times, but that wasn't my prime takeway; rather, the sustained blast of rage and contempt I received from someone I had thought of as a friend, because I was voting for Hillary, was my takeaway. (I'm sure others have had similar experiences.) One advantage of the secret ballot is that it's, well, secret, so relationships don't get destroyed over politics.
Not only is the caucus system unrepresentative, it's open to abuse by anyone who wants to game it. Over at TalkLeft, one P. Cronin has a detailed comparison of the caucus system vs. true, secret ballot elections, and it's not a pretty sight [PDF, and please read and disseminate widely]. Here's the first comparison table, and boy, is it gruesome:
Why are we doing this? Why, in the Year of Our Lord Or Lady, If Any 2008, after election 2000 was stolen in FL, and election 2004 was pretty iffy in OH, are we relying on a system where the results are not transparent or auditable, and the results are not officially certified? Does this travesty of a caucus system make any sense?**
Which brings me to the TX caucuses.
A source that I have good reason to believe is trustworthy supplied the information below to Wampum and Corrente -- which I've suitably anonymized -- on issues with the TX caucuses. I think there's a story here; interested journalists may contact me for a referral. Regardless, the story should have a thorough airing; my source is said to be in possession of affidavits (the missing piece in the story as covered).
Example:
At the Precinct Convention, _____ said the Chair asked for a “show of hands” of how many people wanted to be delegates and then the Chair appointed “7 delegates to Obama and 6 for Clinton.” The Obama captain called in FALSE results. She said the actual results were 74 Clinton and 33 Obama (total votes) which translates 9 for Clinton and 4 for Obama of 13 delegates. Obama supporters did not allow Hillary supporters to review the results of the count or participate in the math.
Example:
The election judge left early and gave the packet [of election materials] to an unidentified individual. No Clinton chair was present. Our captain and volunteers were not allowed to participate in the calculation of delegates or in the reporting and the unidentified individual called in the results, which ______ believes should be Clinton 13 and Obama 0. It is uncertain what was reported.
Example:
_________ reports she saw an Obama person writing “Obama” as a preference for HRC voters where there were blanks in the sign in sheets. The Obama person also tried to turn her away because she did not have a voter card. Temp chair was with Obama. Perm chair is an HRC supporter. People left as Beckie argued for 15 to 20 minutes that the precinct log should be checked. The Obama person shouted an announcement that anyone without a voter card should leave.
Example:
Precinct 61, a 19 delegate precinct: Voter ________ reports that the delegate calculations were not correct. A "young guy with glasses," was somehow appointed chair. BHO people dominated the convention despite being heavily out-numbered. Supporters numbered: 89 HRC, 16 BHO, 1 Richardson, 2 uncommitted, but the initial delegate calculation was 16 delegates for HRC, 16 delegate for BHO. A coin flip somehow converted two uncommitted voters into BHO delegates to break the “tie” of 16 delegates each. _________ believes the reported results were 16HRC/18BHO but should have been 16HRC/ 3BHO.
Example:
At 7:05pm at the Precinct Convention, all of the voting for the primary was complete and all of the caucus goers were seated. ________ reported that the Obama chair waited an hour and said “we did not expect this many people so we will have to move” when no move was necessary. The chair said “just sign your name and address and then you can leave.” When asked “what about our presidential preference?” the Obama chair replied “we don’t have time for that…just write your name and address.”
Example:
At the Precinct Convention, Obama supporters told 70-100 Hillary supporters to leave and the majority of them left, including a number of elderly people. Obama supporters took over the packet and the convention. These people are believed to have signed in and to have cast their presidential preference.
That's part of the unreported record; I selected incidents reported by voters, not party or campaign operatives.
Was this undemocratic, delegitimizing, and possibly criminal behavior by (some) Obama supporters widespread in TX? The argument can certainly be made that this is the reason for the gross disparity between the results of the full-fledged secret ballot election and the caucuses. Because we've got over 2000 claims of rules violiations, with reports of potentially criminal handling of election packets in 16 precincts, and lockouts of Clinton supporters in 11.*** Tendentiously: It's not that the Obama team is better organized; the issue is better organized at doing what, exactly....
Finally, as a sidelight, I should say that some insiders say that the Clinton legal team had access to plenty of data of this kind, including affidavits, but chose the strategy of working within the rules set by the Texas Democratic Party to maximize the delegate count on a case-by-case basis. If that's true, it looks like the RBC aren't the only ones to make Florida 2000 a process to emulate, rather than a horror to avoid.
If I were a journalist--alas, it looks like the El Paso Times is in the tank for Obama, so local coverage is no good -- instead of a C list blogger, I'd want answers to the following questions:
Ask the Clinton legal team to provide the approximately 200 affidavits they gathered in Texas.
Ask the county TDP chairs to provide any evidence in their possession of irregularities from either side.
Ask witnesses to go on the public record. Only once, on the Mario Solice Marich radio show, has a witness in El Paso been asked by the media to discusses what they saw.
Ask caucus goers in other states if they had similar experiences as Texans.
Ask staffers from all campaigns to recall the worst irregularities they are aware of.
Ask all involved if they believe caucuses were legitimate this cycle.
Review polling data (such as at the NYT and CNN) to see if caucuses in Texas and elsewhere disenfranchised minority groups, in particular, Hispanics.
Those are the kinds of questions that those of us who travel by bus would like answered. Why are they important? Because the caucus system gave Obama his margin in pledged delegates (TalkLeft, citing P. Cronin):
97% of pledged delegate difference between Obama and Clinton is directly related to the caucus victories, caucus delegates’ account for 1 in every 6.5 DNC delegates and nearly 2/3 of those delegates will vote pro-Obama essentially giving them substantially more clout in determining the 2008 Democratic nominee.
NOTE * Wampum on their source:
I have the original, and the affidavits in my possession, and I personally know the person who provided these documents to me, and who's last name is redacted along with the rest. I have a higher degree of confidence in the provenance of the material and veracity of the existence of the events journaled in the incident report than I have of anything in the media, other than perhaps the report of yesterday's weather where I was an actual observer, or the date.
The source has also been vouched for to me, independently.
NOTE ** For those who argue for the social advantages of the caucus system, in that it makes sure people are invested in the political process, may I suggest that the same advantages could be gained by gathering to count the votes, rather than cast them? (A situation where the opposing parties would not only serve as checks on each other, but might learn to cooperate.)
NOTE *** Yes, the source is the Clinton campaign. Ezra, who is cited in the second link, points out that "This sort of an e-mail, phrased this strongly, sent this early, is pretty unprecedented." Could be political; but given the material above, which was not available to Ezra when he posted, there's a prima facie case that the charges are true. Certainly that would be one very, very obvious reason for the divergence between the caucus results and the popular vote: Obama controlled the caucuses. Could it be -- and I know this will strike some in the press as a fantasy -- that the answer would be to cover the story?
TROLL PROPHYLACTIC I'm not arguing that Obama's caucus delegates are illegitimate -- leaving aside any that were gained through criminal activity, of course. I am saying that the SDs are entitled to weigh the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the caucus system, and the ways in which it can be gamed and manipulated, when making their judgement about which candidate should be chosen as the Democratic nominee. After the RBC decision, I have little hope of this, but there's still some possibility that sensible voices will be heard.
And I'm also calling out the press for, once again, not covering the story. (Just as the Times didn't put names to the faces of the bourgeois rioters in FL 2000 until after Bush had been safely selected.)
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wampum
the blog most deserving of wider recongnition
Interview Caucus participants from all states
I would find a way to survey caucus participants from all caucus states. The experience was a nightmare.
I've got a draft of a letter written by my father describing his experience. But, I'm afraid to read it.
The experience was so traumatic, my heart is exploding right now from the memory.
So, don't read it, send it me...
... and I'll post it! Then at least others can read it!
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Lambert
I'll send it tonight. Don't let me forget.
damn good reporting, lambert
this is one of those fundamental matters that was underreported. it just didn't merit the degree of journalistic attention that, say, proving the clintons were racists merited.
i gained an inkling of this problem from a post i read about a month ago, maybe here, maybe at no quarter.
but this post of yours is detailed, case by case.
i'll see if i can find any reference at NQ.
the issue of older people and people with disabilities and caucus attendance is very important. i think jeralyn did a calculation on this issue (maybe involving older women in nursing homes) in about the same time frame.
Check the Wampum stuff, too
I gave a fraction of the material.
It would be interesting if somebody who knew statistics, cough, Paul, cough, could work with that county data...
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Suffocation
Count me among the Texans who won't caucus again. The number of those wishing to participate swelled and spilled out into the hall. Wall-to-wall people stuffed into a tiny Sunday school room. I would have stayed and fought for my candidate, but the claustrophobia was unbearable. I felt sorry for the numerous elderly and the young mom with her baby.
I had been given a ticket to the caucus on the day that I voted, but it turned out that wasn't enough to caucus--you had to have your voter registration card or the precinct chair would have to look you up.
So many people arrived to caucus before the poll closed that voters couldn't get through the crowd and were turned away when the poll closed and they thought they were in line to vote.
While it was encouraging and actually brought tears to my eyes to see so many of my neighbors caring enough to caucus, I think that civic pride wasn't the only reason we did so. Anybody following political coverage in this state had it drummed into their heads that their votes wouldn't matter if they didn't caucus. Vote twice!
Maybe 1 out of 3 caucuses in my neck of the woods was well run. And that's being generous. The party was woefully underprepared, understaffed, underorganized. The campaigns? I don't know. I didn't stick around to see whether any shenanigans took place.
texas caucus fraud
from NoQuarter:
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/category/te...
(this was so easy it seems like cheatin' to me)
by Pacific John
"Texas Caucus Fraud"
posted may 4 12:51p
(filed under "texas" in th nq index)
[ Following my friend Lois Capps’ endorsement of Barack Obama, it became clear that I had done her and other delegates a disservice by not disclosing information I witnessed at the Texas caucuses, and that endorsements should be made with the benefit of this information. After her endorsement, I wrote to Rep. Capps so that she can be fully informed in the event that delegates are forced to shift from one candidate to the other as the party forms a consensus behind the stronger of the two candidates.
I need to point out that I am not on the Hillary for President campaign staff, and that the campaign has gone to significant lengths to keep this dirty laundry out of the press. However, it is my strong feeling that we should not withhold evidence of crime, particularly since it is inconsistent with the public Obama image of being above “anything it takes to win,” and it sheds significant light onto the otherwise puzzling difference between the popular vote and caucus results. Here are excerpts from my letter to Rep. Capps. ...]
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/05/04/...
(another way to do it, this is too much fun.)
re: elderly and infrim and caucuses:
from Talk Left:
[ Another Electability Argument Regarding Caucuses
By Jeralyn,
Posted on Wed May 14, 2008 at 03:58:49 PM EST
It's generally recognized that caucus results are less representative of a state's voters than primary results. Their curtailed voting hours and the lack of early voting, absentee or mail-in voting ensures it. But they count for choosing pledged delegates, so that's water under the bridge.
When it comes to electability arguments for the superdelegates, however, I think there's something they need to consider -- that caucus results vastly undercount one particular segment of voters who will vote in big numbers in the general election: The elderly and infirm, including nursing home residents who weren't mobile enough to attend a caucus but who can vote by absentee ballot in primaries and the general election.
If unable to attend caucuses, and most likely were, their preferences were excluded. This is one more reason I don't think that a superdelegate can equate a caucus win in a particular state with a win in that state against John McCain in November.
The Democratic party needs older voters this year more than ever against John McCain. And they have been coming out in primaries for Hillary. Statistics on our 37 million residents over age 65, 1.9 million of whom live in nursing homes, are below:
America's population over age 65:
In 2006, 37 million people age 65 and over lived in the United States, accounting for just over 12 percent of the total population. Over the 20th century, the older population grew from 3 million to 37 million. The oldest-old population (those age 85 and over) grew from just over 100,000 in 1900 to 5.3 million in 2006.
The states with the largest elderly populations:
In 2006, Florida had the highest proportion of people age 65 and over, 17 percent. Pennsylvania and West Virginia also had high proportions, over 15 percent.
As to gender:
In 2006, women accounted for 58 percent of the population age 65 and over and for 68 percent of the population age 85 and over.
By race:...]
Give the links, OrionATL
Don't just copy and paste. That's for the OFB
....
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
but sir
i dont know how to, sir.
alright, i'll figure it out.
Somebody help orionATL with a how to...
I can't, I've got to go.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
i got it figured out
from Talk Left:
[ Another Electability Argument Regarding Caucuses
By Jeralyn,
Posted on Wed May 14, 2008 at 03:58:49 PM EST
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/14/...
(wheee, this is fun).
update from jerlyn on caucus v primaries report
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/6/2/1...
So instead of your post
You could have
Update
Here's how it's done
(a href="Linky")Link Title(/a)
Replace the parenthesis with < and >, always remember the backslash, that closes the HTML tag.
Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!
For your next lesson, Orion
Embed your links. Big help with readability, and allows you to provide a great many links tied to the relevant text.
go below the Comment box and click on "Input Format"
then click on "More information about formatting options" which should open this page.
Scroll down to the first item under the gray banner, What you want are called "anchors". They will hide the actual link behind your text, and create a highlite to let readers know they are there.
Don't forget the space between the front anchor "a" and the "href"
remember the " " marks to bracket the actual site address itself
always check for the slash "/" before the last "a", think of it as the "gate" that closes the command.
When you open [Preview] you can check for continuity on your links by placing you cursor on them. This should display the address of the intended link on the lower left edge of your operating window. If the address shows up, it should be working. If it doesn't, something in your formating is wrong.
All thanks and praise to Lambert.
my caucus experience
Katiebird suggested interviewing all caucus participants.
I caucused in suburban Seattle. A local junior high, about 6-7 blocks away, I think there were 13 precincts there. It was very crowded. It was not confrontational at all. Some Obama people were pushing buttons, I ignored them. No Hillary paraphenalia was being pushed (point for her).
Everything was slow. I'm sure we were over the fire department limit. But nobody was particularly upset.
The crowd was not youngish. Neither is my neighbourhood. Some of everything, and more than our fair share of people in the 35-65 range.
My precinct had 39 participants - biggest turnout in memory according to people with experience.
We gathered in a part of the cafeteria (3 precincts in the cafeteria). Split into groups. One minute speeches given. Revote taken. Nobody changed. We were 29-9-1 for Obama/Clinton/Edwards. Our precinct was allocated 4 delegates so split was 3-1 Obama. Delegates nominated (generally by themselves). Obama people voted for 3 Obama delegates. Clinton people voted for a Clinton delegate. Votes tallied, delegates determined, packet filled out.
No fighting, no arguing. Some dicussing, but the platforms weren't really addressed much. In my precinct there was no real difference between the Obama crowd and the Hillary crowd. Hillary crowd happened to average a bit younger because they had a couple people voting in their first election.
One person sent in a "can't physically make it" form with a vote (Hillary).
About lambert's table: I prefer primaries to caucuses, but I completely disagree that primaries have more transparency. At least not in WA. It was very clear to everyone in our precinct exactly how the votes were tallied and the delegates distributed, and then how the delegates were chosen. Compared to a secret ballot calculated by a machine?
Caucus in TX-22
I took my child along with me to both early vote and later caucus at a different site. The line was shah-hooge to caucus, with the D's outnumbering the R line by an easy 12 or so to 1. It took us a good hour and a half to actually get in the site. Almost no people older than 40's or so were in evidence. Significantly more men than women, whatever that does or does not mean.
I don't know how else to say it but just report it - the D line was 90% AA and when we reached the entrance to the actual caucus room Obama supporters were 95%+ AA. My child and I never had any issue with anyone as we waited to caucus, and had several conversations with line goer's that were other than politics - stories about our children, local headlines, etc. Politics was like the unspoken taboo in the line to get in to caucus.
Two things -
I personally witnessed about a dozen individuals I *know* to be Republicans caucusing for Obama. These folk are die hard HotTub Tom DeLay types and there is no way they will vote D in Nov.
I have NO PROOF but was told by an HRC delegate that she witnessed a list being filled out with people's names who were not there and signed an affidavit to such. That is her word, not mine but I believe her FWIW.
ice and corner stone
these are great stories.
pencils and pads on the ground.
i'd rather read these recollections any day than wapo or nytwytimes.
thanks
bringiton and aeryl -
the info is much appreciated and will be studied.
(and to think, i thought all you had to do to comment on a weblog was to have an idea and write a few sentences connected by "and".)
primary transparency [meant to reply to ice]
here in florida -- a primary state -- we have paper ballots that you mark [with specially-provided pens!] and the ballots are read and counted by an optical scanner. the paper ballots can always be recounted by hand later if somebody challenges the machine-count result.
This is Corrente, Orion
An A+ blog, where extra effort is expected. :-)
a+, indeed
i shall strive for better,
sir.
thanks again for showing the way.
The reason embedded links are better...
Is that the decision about where to put the link, and what prose to make clickable, is now a decision that's up to the write, and becomes part of prose style. So, an extra dimension to make reading more interesting!
As opposed to just dumping the link any old place...
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R)
heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
hipparchia,
That's far superior to the machine-only-no-paper-trail-ballots - but do you think it's _more_transparent than a caucus?
You can hang around your polling place all day long on election day, but when the numbers come out you can't really prove that the vote count is wrong (other than the total, if you've been counting people).
Anyone in any precinct at my caucus could go to the local Dem leadership later and say "I was in precinct XXX; I want to confirm that you have Y Obama delegates and Z Clinton delegates from my precinct."
That seems to be a greater level of transparency. You know exactly how many people were there, and who they voted for. And the paper with that data written down is saved.
The negative side is that a lot of people prefer their vote to be secret.
As I already said, I'd prefer a primary. But not because of transparency - I think that's a benefit of a caucus. It's not worth the added complication, though, or the greater burden it puts on people who want to participate.
Now if things are much different in other states, I can't speak to it. I've only caucused in Washington. And it's also possible that other precincts had more problems (though the other two precincts in the same room I was in ran about the same, despite being significantly larger). It sounds like in Texas there were many locations that weren't nearly large enough to accomodate the voters. I don't see that as a problem endemic to caucuses, though - just a problem with how they were run in Texas this year.
paper trails [ouch]
that's one of the things that got florida in this mess: included in the bill that moved the primary up to january, was legislation changing all the touch screen machines to optical scanners with real paper ballots. one of the dnc roolz for this primary was to institute paper trails [which we did].
it's true that the barriers, at least here in florida, are higher for the kind of transparency you're talking about. anybody who wants a recount has to be willing to pay for it, with some exceptions: [don't quote me on these, i'm going on fuzzy memory now] if the recount turns up significantly different results, you don't have to pay after all, and i think there's an automatic recount in the case of a very close vote.
each polling place has [paper!] books [bound! not looseleaf!] of all the registered voters, with name, address, party affiliation, a spot for the voter to sign, and a spot for the poll worker to record the number on the ballot. if there's no signature and no ballot number that person didn't vote. i don't know if anybody can ask anytime to look at those books, or if it's like recounts, where you have to formally petition in some way, but the information is there.
with a lot of effort, the ballot numbers can be matched to the voter names, and you could find out exactly who voted for whom, i suppose, but that sorta negates the 'secret' part of 'secret ballot'.
the supervisor of elections for my county [maybe the state? too lazy to look for it] posts on their website, the votes by county, and i think even by precinct, for each candidate. they're the original machine totals, not a hand count, or a machine recount, but the information is available that night after the polls close.
additionally, the scanner itself has a display with the number of ballots read, and you feed your own ballot into the machine, so if the counter doesn't go up by one, or goes up by more than one, you know right away that it had some kind of problem with your ballot. not a foolproof mechanism, but it's comforting to see anyway.
i've voted in a couple of different precincts here, and everybody i've seen so far has been super-duper-careful with the record-keeping. i did poll-worker stuff back in the dark ages, 30 years ago, and i gotta say, i do like what my county has come up with [we were ahead of the curve, having been early adopters of the optical scanners when others went with the touch screens].
--------------
a problem i can see with caucuses: my precinct had about 600 voters turn out in the primary, in a building that would hold max 75 or so people at one time. it's mostly a neghborhood of rundown little old houses, rundown little old churches, rundown little old stores and restaurants, and a school that isn't all that big either. not sure what we'd do with 600 people all at once. make them stand out in the street, i guess. that would be some real grassroots politicking!
Women In Caucuses
Back in January, which now feels like a million years ago, I wrote a Diary at MyDD talking about potential issues surrounding gender differences at caucuses as they relate to studies done on gender differences in classrooms and mixed-sex discussions. The upshot is not that there definitely are differences that could affect the outcome of a caucus, but that gender differences affect other social situations and we have no idea if they also affect caucus participation. Anyway, here's what I wrote then and still agree with now.
And to update with some more current information about studies showing gender differences in social settings, there was a study done in 2005:
So if you want your candidate to win, don't have a woman argue in any way that might be seen as assertive on his/her behalf at a caucus. That would seem to be a bad thing.
Also, if you are a woman who has a job and a family, you are fucked. But then I presume you already know that.
And from Taylor Marsh, something not all that relevant to caucuses, but it is to gender differences:
Couldn't have said it better myself.
men = go-getters, women = pushy bitches
we've been offering up anecdotal evidence of this for-like-evah. always nice to have people attempt to quantify it.
i think you're right about the effect in actual caucuses. i'm pretty sure i read somewhere some interviews with women who did admit that they've let their husbands/boyfriends influence how they caucused. i wouldn't have any problem telling a whole roomful of bullying men to stuff it now, but in my teens and 20s i wouldn't have said boo to a mouse.
Well done staying on the caucus story, lambert
They are just flat awful. Back in the day, with small villages where everyone knew everybody else's business anyway, they may have made sense. Modern times, they are absurd. All elections should be with the same mechanisms as the general election, ballots and absentee/early voting by mail. Why not?
Not that presidential primary elections have any actual meaning to the process, but the appearance of meaning, the quality of the sham, is surely important to keeping civil order. :-)
Caucuses Abominable BUT Primaries also flawed
Although the caucuses are an abomination the presidential only primaries are anything but perfect. Open presidential only primaries allow the process to be gamed by crossovers. Separate presidential primaries have allowed the national committees to game the entire process. Small unrepresentative states have had too large a role in selecting nominees. This year the Democratic party chose 4 early states that they claimed were representative of the nations diversity. None of the four were even remotely representatative of the nation. If representative or diversity was the goal then Michigan and Florida should have been first.
So to fix the whole damn mess, forbid caucuses altogether, forbid presidential only primaries, set no schedule. If the presidential candidates are selected on the same ballot as all other partisan offices the scheduling is determined by the states. No state is going to hold an all office primary in January or February. The primaries would be run much later. This year Michigan held a Presidential primary in January and will hold its normal all office primary on August 5. Even in a state like Michigan which has no partisan registration, gaming the system with crossovers would be minimal in this scenario since all parties are selecting candidates for down ticket offices on the same day.
Total delegate allocation for a state should be by population only, small states are over-represented or large states are under-represented take your pick. Delegates should only be awarded as a proportion of the vote, not by Congressional district.
If nothing else fractious disputes over rules and imbecilic, party damaging desisions would be avoided. The primary campaign season would be considerably shorter and we just might be spared an eighteen or nineteen month process of candidate selection. A shorter season could very well reduce campaign costs and decrease the influence of big money.
closed primaries only--
that's what they all should be--no crossovers, no "open primaries", no caucuses.
i've seen my fair share
of shady caucus activity, but mine was in Nevada, and done by Clinton supporters.
The bottom line behind caucuses, though--even though I hate the fact that voters who are absent (such as active duty military can't participate, and the fact that, when not run efficiently, they can take a very long time (though no longer than waiting in line for hours at the polls)--is that they're party-building tools. The state party can take the data they get from the caucuses and use it for party organizing.
In Texas, there were about 750,000 caucusgoers, the vast majority of which gave current addresses. This not only solidifies the party's contacts on its urban centers, but helps organize rural areas as well (and all those Dittoheads that signed up for Hillary for operation chaos are consigned to a year's worth or more of mail from the Democratic Party of Texas).
I served as a precinct captain for Obama in Travis County (Austin). Initially, I hated the "primacaucus" system because people had to vote twice to vote fully. But the more I think about it, the more I like Texas' system. You have a primary that is more accessible to voters and that is worth more delegates, and then you have a caucus for the purposes of Party building.
Everybody wins, despite the completely unproven allegations of fraud that have been going around.
The only thing I wish were that there was more accountability in the process. But the idea as a whole is excellent.
Hearing on Texas Caucuses
Anyone know anything about this? I hope people who feel like they got screwed at the caucuses hear about these meetings and show up to tell their stories. (via Alegre's Corner)
Ack, Double Post
Sorry.
Lambert - can you please contact me?
I'm at puma documentary at yahoo dot com. I am all over this today. We're going back to Texas - it's now a done deal.
If we are the ones we have been waiting for, then we have met the enemy and he is us.