Democrats: Let’s Abolish The Caucus System

I’m fully behind Hillary Clinton supporters calling for the abolition of the caucus system. This isn’t entirely noise being made for the sake of doing so because we’re mad Hillary Clinton lost to Barack Obama, but because the caucus system is very flawed—though, it is arguable that Clinton would have wiped the floor with Obama if there were only primaries.

Caucuses undermine core democratic values because it is a very undemocratic way to nominate someone. I think all states should be required to hold primaries instead. Caucuses are inherently unfair to the elderly, the disabled, shift workers, parents, overseas members of the military, and others whose circumstances prevent them from sitting for hours in a caucus vote. In a primary vote, people have the entire day to vote, but caucuses last only for a few hours, usually in the evening (past midnight in Texas this year) and that disenfranchises voters with obligations that prevent them from participating.

Many caucus rules profoundly violate the one person-one vote principle. For example, in certain states' rules if a precinct is entitled to elect four delegates to the county convention and the vote is 59 percent for candidate A and 41 percent for candidate B, the mathematical rules may require a 2-2 division (because candidate A did not win 60 percent). Therefore, 59 percent to 41 percent—a landslide—results in a 50-50 tie and an even split of delegates.

The worse case is in the state I live in (Texas) and that’s the “Texas Two Step” system. This year nearly three million voters participated in the March 4th Democratic primary. Then the caucus began at 7 p.m. when the polls closed. The people who voted in the primary—I’m not kidding you—may return and vote again. But not all votes are equal! Say, you live in Houston or Austin and the 2006 Democratic candidate for governor carried your precinct by a large margin, your vote could be twice or even three times as influential as if you lived in south Texas, which is mostly rural, strong Republican-dominated counties.

How is any of that democratic, particularly when the principle of one-person, one-vote is violated? Doesn't that embarrass a party that calls itself the "Democratic" Party?

Moreover the average turnout in the caucuses—which Obama did very well in—for all of 2008 was under 10 percent. Even in the highest profile caucus state of all, the “I-must-always-be-first-in-the-nation-to-go,” Iowa had their strongest caucus turnout ever this year. 218,000 Iowans made it to the Democratic caucuses that night, in a state with 2.982 million citizens, for a 7.3-percent showing. It doesn’t get any better in other states: New Mexico (11 percent), Nevada (9 percent), Minnesota and Maine (5 percent), North Dakota (4 percent), Colorado and Nebraska (3 percent), and Idaho, Wyoming, and Kansas (2 percent).

More than twenty years ago, the Democrats switched from winner-take-all contest to a proportional allocation of delegates to be more “fair.” Well, the current system is anything but fair with the silly mathematical formulas for allocating delegates.

In the Texas primary on March 4, Hillary defeated Obama by a margin of 100,000 votes out of nearly 3 million. Clinton was awarded 65 delegates, while Obama received 61. But in the Texas caucus over 42,538 caucus goers – 1.4 percent of primary voters – overturned the will of the other 98.6 percent. Talk about stealing democracy from the people by an exclusionary process. In the end, Obama won 38 delegates to Clinton’s 29. Put all this together and Obama came out of Texas with 99 delegates to Clinton’s 94, despite the fact that Clinton handily won the contest where votes were actually counted.

Look at Nevada and New Hampshire. Hillary won the Nevada caucus and the New Hampshire primary yet Obama received more delegates than her in both states.

Or look at Idaho and New Jersey.

In Idaho, about 21,000 Democrats gathered for the caucus. Obama won in a blowout by a margin of 13,000 votes (80 percent of the vote). For that, he won 15 delegates to only 3 for Clinton — a net gain of 12 delegates. In New Jersey, Clinton won by a margin of 110,000 votes out of more than a million votes. For that, she won 59 delegates to Obama's 48 — a net gain of 11 delegates.

Democrats…please explain, under what system does it make sense for Obama to collect more net delegates for beating Hillary by 13,000 votes in one state than she does for beating Obama by 110,000 in another?

If we kept the mathematical formula of Idaho where Obama picked up 15 of 18 delegates for winning a state with just over 21,000 Democratic votes, then, in a consistent democratic system, using the Idaho math of a net of 12 delegates per 13,000 vote advantage, Hillary’s 215,000 vote win in Pennsylvania should have yielded her a net gain of 198 delegates. Instead, she’s gained a net of only 12 delegates from the Keystone State.

In this case, an Idaho Democrat’s vote counted for 16 times more than a Pennsylvania Democrat’s vote. The system rewards blowout wins in small states and minimizes wins even of 10 or 12 percentage points in big states.

Why should a few thousand people Idaho have an absurdly large say, ultimately quelling a few million in Pennsylvania? One person, one vote? Not in the Democrats’ delegate-allocation system.

Suggestions for the Democratic Party:

One. Abolish the caucus system. Don’t try to bandage it, fix it up, or anything. Just kill it.

Two. Require all states to have primaries; do away with proportional delegate allocation and require a winner-take all system that aligns the nominating system with the Electoral College system for electing presidents—unlike many Democrats, I don’t support abolishing the Electoral College.

Three. Eliminate the super delegates. Nancy Pelosi said she opposed the idea of having super delegates from the beginning yet she was the most biased and the worst behaved. If the political big wigs want to give endorsements and try to sway voters, let them, but their advocacy should not earn any presidential candidate any sort of delegation. By all means, 800 super delegates is beyond excessive and it easily allows party insiders to back a single candidate to the chagrin of the voters. We’re Democrats—let the people decide. Step in if no one reaches the total number of delegates needed by the end of the primary season; it is a race to be elected by the people, not your colleagues.

Four. Why not have five regional primaries starting in mid-January, on a set date, maybe even on a weekend when people are off from work and have one region vote each month through May, with the order of regions rotated every four years so everyone gets a chance to go first (cf. Florida and Michigan controversy; the divine right of Iowa and New Hampshire to always go first to the anger of other states in the union.)

I think this is a sensible and fair request. While those terms are oxymoronic when associated with the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating system, I can always pray and hope.