Presidential Election 2016

[David Greene]

It's a good thing we have a modern system that people understand for picking presidential candidates.

It's a complete disgrace. Just scrap this archaic system and have a primary.

I disagree about scrapping it. It's currently an utter disgrace but there is value in the caucus process. There are ways to reform the caucus for the 21st century.

[grant1simons2]

Unofficial results out of 48A:

Sanders - 441
Clinton - 439

[MNdible]

Caucuses don't need to be scrapped, but the candidate selection portion of it should be cleft off into a primary. Save the caucuses for the party insiders who want to spend hours debating about minutiae and leave the rest of us poor voters out of it.

[David Greene]

That's part of it but there is more caucus business that could be opened up to people beyond "arty insiders who want to spend hours debating about minutiae." Some of that "minutiae" is quite important and we should make it more accessible.

[EOst]

Caucuses are far more useful to a party (from an organizational standpoint) than primaries. The DFL now has the name and home address--at least--of everyone who voted last night, including all those tens of thousands of otherwise-hard-to-track-down Millennial Bernie voters. That can be a big deal.

[talindsay]

Caucuses don't need to be scrapped, but the candidate selection portion of it should be cleft off into a primary. Save the caucuses for the party insiders who want to spend hours debating about minutiae and leave the rest of us poor voters out of it.

The problem with this is, it's ALL party minutiae - the government, and our governmental election process, has no business legitimizing or intermingling with the methods parties use to choose their candidates. Remember, this isn't an election - it's a party process for choosing their nominee. Government-run primaries (as used especially in the Northeast) ensconce the parties as though they're organs of the state, giving them legitimacy by controlling the way they choose their candidates. Want to get on a ballot in the Northeast? Go through one of the parties. Want to add a new party? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Caucuses are messy, but they also FORCE people to understand that "primaries" are part of a political party's inner workings, and aren't part of the process of our governance. The notion of a binding straw poll is an absurd thing that's been hoisted on Minnesota by a 24-hour news cycle that wants to make national news of the parties' inner workings but knows how to get data from secretaries of state, not party operatives. How accurate is the straw poll? Not very. People write things on a slip of paper and throw them in a trash can (or at least, that's how my precinct was). Does anybody verify that the person lives in the precinct? No. Does anybody verify that every ballot was submitted by one person who's eligible? No. Would anybody notice if you dropped five slips in instead of one? No. Why? Because they're not election judges and it's not an election.

The point of a caucus is for party people to talk about business at the grassroots neighborhood level, and to select people to represent them at the next convention up. That convention discusses the business of its level and sends delegates on up, and so forth, to the national convention. Is anybody in that whole process bound to vote a certain way? No. Are they bound to exactly follow the wishes of their local caucus? Of course not, that's why they're thinking people who meet to work things out. At the national convention we can talk about delegates being "bound" to candidates, but that's obviously meaningless because if it were true in any real sense they would never be able to resolve disagreement. So the straw poll binding the distribution of delegates means that there's this strange hamstringing of the delegates at the state convention's selection of delegates for the national convention that exists for no other office or issue, only because people want to pretend that our caucuses have something to do with governmental elections. They don't, and they shouldn't.

Sorry that's a bit ranty. I get really fired up about people confusing politics with governance, and hence confusing parties with government.

[talindsay]

Pretty sure the Minnesota caucus polls are binding as of this year. Or is that just on the Republican side?

I have a question out on this to a DFL insider-ish person.

What I'm wondering about is the following situation, which apparently happened at at least one precinct:

1. Sanders wins preference ballot.
2. All the delegates selected are Clinton supporters because the Sanders people left, not understanding how the caucus works.

What happens?

Actually, it's not likely to be an issue. They'll do a walking caucus to choose delegates, and that will be bound by the division. Remember that there are thousands of delegates chosen at caucuses, and those delegates will choose the delegates to send on. It's not like each precinct gets a proportional share of the national delegates; there are far more precincts in Minnesota than the total number of national delegates chosen by the distribution formula for the pledged delegates. Not to say your delegates are irrelevant, but they likely wouldn't change the math anyway, and even if that happened everywhere they'll still divide up the selection of delegates at the state convention according to the "results" (see my prior post on that) of the preference ballot.

[LakeCharles]

Would anybody notice if you dropped five slips in instead of one? No. Why? Because they're not election judges and it's not an election.

They certainly noticed, and dealt with this, at ours. There were 10 more votes than signatures, and though we never determined the reason (could be many things, probably not nefarious), we had to resolve the issue. We decided to proportionally lower both candidates vote count.

Anyway, your larger point is a good one, but people are definitely paying attention.

[twinkess]

talindsay: interesting take on caucus vs primary. Thanks. I hadn't made up my mind either way but now I prefer caucuses.

[David Greene]

Caucuses are messy, but they also FORCE people to understand that "primaries" are part of a political party's inner workings, and aren't part of the process of our governance.

That's a very odd statement given the caucuses and primaries determine our choices in the general election. Of course they are part of our governance. They help choose who runs things.

I agree that caucuses have great value but delegate selection should absolutely be easy to understand and accessible to everyone. Because the primaries and caucuses are what determine our choices.

More caucus activities should be opened up to the light of scrutiny. The parties are supposed to represent the will of their members and right now they don't. The Republicans are actually closer to that ideal than the Democrats, as disastrous as that's turning out to be.

[talindsay]

That's a very odd statement given the caucuses and primaries determine our choices in the general election. Of course they are part of our governance. They help choose who runs things.

They don't determine our choices in the general election. They determine who the parties are supporting (and nominating) in the general election. Our presidential ballot is open to *ANYBODY* who files the proper paperwork, pays the proper fees, and gets the proper signatures. You don't have to go through a party or be involved in a partisan caucus/primary to get access to the *GOVERNMENTAL* function of election. The caucus (or its opposite, the partisan primary, for states that do that) is the party's process of choosing its nominee. They can legally do it however they want as long as they follow their own rules per their constitutions; they're not governmental. It may feel like it at times, but the DFL is not part of the governance of Minnesota. They're a party who run candidates; because they're a major party and members of the major parties wrote our laws as such, they get some easier access to the ballot than other groups, but they're not government.

[David Greene]

That's a very odd statement given the caucuses and primaries determine our choices in the general election. Of course they are part of our governance. They help choose who runs things.

They don't determine our choices in the general election. They determine who the parties are supporting (and nominating) in the general election.

That's a distinction without a practical difference.

The reality, as you pointed out, is that there are only two viable presidential parties in this country and their processes to select candidates should be open, easy to understand and scrutinized every bit as a general election.

[talindsay]

That's a very odd statement given the caucuses and primaries determine our choices in the general election. Of course they are part of our governance. They help choose who runs things.

They don't determine our choices in the general election. They determine who the parties are supporting (and nominating) in the general election.

That's a distinction without a practical difference.

The reality, as you pointed out, is that there are only two viable presidential parties in this country and their processes to select candidates should be open, easy to understand and scrutinized every bit as a general election.

In the case of our election for the president, you are right. However, the same system is used for all levels of government, for all offices, and in those others, especially local, which is the most important, the distinction has a huge difference as the more governmental process would put up unnecessary roadblocks to otherwise accessible offices. The presidency is the only office where the benefits of our system clash with the quasi governmental machinery of other states' processes, and frankly I'm willing to make that trade-off.
But I can see you disagree with me, and that's fine; I don't think we need to argue over it.

Full disclosure: I was on the DFL state central committee for two years and have served in various roles at caucuses and conventions so I have an insider's view but I'm also a believer in keeping our system available to other parties and independents, such as my Green city council member.

[David Greene]

In the case of our election for the president, you are right. However, the same system is used for all levels of government, for all offices, and in those others, especially local, which is the most important, the distinction has a huge difference as the more governmental process would put up unnecessary roadblocks to otherwise accessible offices. The presidency is the only office where the benefits of our system clash with the quasi governmental machinery of other states' processes, and frankly I'm willing to make that trade-off.
But I can see you disagree with me, and that's fine; I don't think we need to argue over it.

Full disclosure: I was on the DFL state central committee for two years and have served in various roles at caucuses and conventions so I have an insider's view but I'm also a believer in keeping our system available to other parties and independents, such as my Green city council member.

I actually don't think we're really in disagreement. I believe in the caucus system (you make an excellent point about state and local offices). But it needs to be reformed. There's so much more we can do, including the use of 21st century technology to make things more accessible.

[mattaudio]

The Independence Party did an online caucus, right? I'd like to see more online engagement on local issues and even local endorsing/nominating. Maybe a hybrid approach would be best... something with online and outreach for engagement and even decisionmaking, but still a place for neighborhood/precinct meetings. There was something cool about being in a room with a hundred people from my immediate neighborhood precinct the other night, but it's also the same slice of people I know from other advocacy (neighborhood org, etc) who have the luxury of plugging themselves in via meetings in the evening hours, conducted in the English language, etc. We can do better to get a broader base of involvement.

[amiller92]

So the straw poll binding the distribution of delegates means that there's this strange hamstringing of the delegates at the state convention's selection of delegates for the national convention that exists for no other office or issue, only because people want to pretend that our caucuses have something to do with governmental elections.

Or, you know, want the actual participants in the caucuses to decide the nominee, rather than just those with multiple days to spend on multiple levels of conventions.

The broadest possible set of people interested in choosing the party's candidate should get to decide. The easiest way to do that is with a primary. It has nothing to do with confusing it with a government process.

[FISHMANPET]

First, people already think it's a "government" process. People are wondering if they need to be registered to vote, if they need to bring a utility bill or be vouched for. They even refer it as "voting." And then consider the number of people that voted in the straw poll vs the number of people that stayed for the caucus.

Second, and to be honest this is the only one that matters: the caucus process is exclusionary. It benefits those who have a lot of free time, particularly during nights and weekends. Which means people that have normal 9-5 jobs. Which means, in general, people that are going to be whiter, wealthier, and in general more privileged than the population as whole. If this is to be an inclusive process, then the caucus as it stands is not acceptable.

[LakeCharles]

Second, and to be honest this is the only one that matters: the caucus process is exclusionary. It benefits those who have a lot of free time, particularly during nights and weekends. Which means people that have normal 9-5 jobs. Which means, in general, people that are going to be whiter, wealthier, and in general more privileged than the population as whole. If this is to be an inclusive process, then the caucus as it stands is not acceptable.

So true. I am super privileged and it was still a difficult juggle to get both my wife and I able to go and be involved (with the kids and all). If I was a single parent, it would have been a straight "nope."

[amiller92]

Second, and to be honest this is the only one that matters: the caucus process is exclusionary. It benefits those who have a lot of free time, particularly during nights and weekends. Which means people that have normal 9-5 jobs. Which means, in general, people that are going to be whiter, wealthier, and in general more privileged than the population as whole. If this is to be an inclusive process, then the caucus as it stands is not acceptable.

And it empowers insiders in doing so.

[clf]

I found issue with the one hour voting window. I know many people that work evenings and had a hard time voting. If we had a full day of voting then the caucus meeting, this would be more inclusive.