Nevada caucus proves that both parties should insist on primaries

Last night, the Nevada caucuses got off to a raucous start. Ballots ran out. Allegations of multiple voting arose. Partisans ran ballot collection and counting operations. Officials sported shirts proclaiming their candidate allegiance (and not just for Donald Trump). In one case, the caucus didn’t actually materialize where advertised:

Welcome to the caucuses! A number of people on Twitter pointed out that their home states would never allow such politicking in voting locations. One intrepid researcher tweeted out Nevada statute forbidding it as well — but those statutes apply to state-run elections, not caucuses. Caucuses are private events run by the political parties, and as such they set the rules and run the show. Badly, as it turns out in this case, but Nevada is hardly alone in that.

That’s why caucuses are a bad idea. They are a nineteenth-century anachronism, one that should have been retired decades ago in favor of primaries for allocating delegates for presidential nominations.

Even when run reasonably well, caucuses are significantly inferior to primaries. State-run primaries have polls open all day, giving every voter a reasonable chance to cast a vote, and allowing for absentee voting for even broader participation. Caucuses are held at a particular time, which means that anyone who can’t make that meeting time can’t participate in their state’s selection of major-party contenders for the presidency.

The voting process in a primary is far superior. There is more oversight over voter identification and much better privacy protection for the ballots. Ballot counting either takes place electronically or under the supervision of all interested parties, or both. Even better yet, when races run close, primaries allow for effective ballot recounts, whereas caucuses do not.

A few people argued last night that Iowa knows how to run caucuses, and that the big problem in Nevada and other states has been a lack of preparation. While it’s true that Iowa has more expertise, the system itself is still flawed, as we saw in 2012 for Republicans and just three weeks ago for Democrats. In both cases, tight results highlighted irregularities in the counting and reporting processes, leading to weeks of uncertainty. The Des Moines Register called for “a complete audit of the results” from the Democratic caucuses in the wake of numerous irregularities cited by Bernie Sanders’ campaign, specifically in the counting of the ballots — which could not be recounted, thanks to the caucus system.

State-run elections aren’t perfect, either. Believe me, we know that better in Minnesota than most (although we too have a caucus system for the presidential primary). However, there is more oversight, better infrastructure, much broader access, and statutory law governing the election system, while the caucus system falls short in all regards.

Thankfully, the results in Nevada were so dramatic that even the irregularities cannot overshadow the Trump domination last night, but not every caucus will produce those kinds of lopsided results — as Iowa’s Democratic caucuses demonstrated earlier this month. Both the RNC and DNC would do well to insist that each state hold primaries rather than caucuses for delegate allocation, and those who refuse to do so can hold their events at the end of the primary calendar. The circus that erupted in Nevada and the failure to achieve confidence in the results of Iowa for the second cycle in a row tells us it’s time to put the nineteenth century to bed.

I would be for a closed primary provided the time required to register as a member the party before voting was not inordinately long, maybe 15 days independents and 30 to 45 days for members of another party.

That would give independent voters plenty of time to register before an election but would help to keep members of the opposition party from intentionally skewing results.

Political party’s actually want new members and closed primaries would tend, I think, to discourage new members

(Says the guy who supported Reagan but voted for Jesse Jackson in the 1984 democratic primary)

ONE MORE TIME:

Democratic caucus rules allowed for people to register AT their Dem caucus-—and to vote that day—Feb 20, Saturday. There was NO way for any of those last second registration papers to be vetted for accuracy-—even to the point of that person even being a citizen. BUT-—the Dems count those votes gleefully.

HOWEVER-—The Republican caucus rules called for a person to be registered Republican by Feb 13th. Since that was a Saturday, effectively, you had to be registered by 5 PM on Friday, Feb 12 with the County officials.

I went to my caucus. It was polite & I saw no evidence of chaos. They may have run out of ballots, but more were being delivered all over N Nevada which I have first hand knowledge of. People waited for those ballots to come & they got to vote. No complaining-—quietly waited—over 100 at just one location.

I had to show ID to get in the building at 4:40 PM. Then I had to show either my driver’s license or my Republican voter registration card, which showed my precinct number on it. Then, the poll worker for that precinct—at a separate table, as were each of the other 5 precincts-—went thru my precinct roll book and found my name, etc. I had to SIGN that book, and my signature had to match the electronic one in the book. ONLY after all of this was I given a ballot. I was clearly told I could vote & leave or I could go into the gym & caucus at the table for precinct 26.

I went inside for about 2 hours. I had to give my name, phone number & address to the person monitoring the table & chairs for Precinct 26 after I got into the gym. We had a lively and polite discussion. I left at 6:40 PM or so. When I went outside, there was a line 2-4 wide for over 200 feet long, waiting to get their vote recorded. They were happy and patient about the wait. Extra parking had been opened up in the adjacent athletic field. We live rural, and that is not unusual-—even for school football games.

I saw no evidence of hanky-panky of any kind, and nothing that made me wonder what was going on.

As far as I am concerned, all of these stories are dirty tricks from the DNC & those who didn’t pay attention to the rules.

I did learn the next day that one neighbor about 6 blocks away tried to vote at the Republican caucus. He is a registered Democrat. He had to change his registration by 5 PM on Feb 12. He went without doing such a change & was indignant & pissed that they WOULD NOT LET HIM VOTE. This POS does nothing all day long but watch TV, so I am at a loss as to why he didn’t know he COULD NOT DO THAT at the
Republican caucus. His ranting don’t bother me a bit.

This was my first caucus, despite living in Nevada for 3 election cycles. I was impressed by the organization & the people staffing the event. All were polite & very helpful and knew the answer to questions.

All these stores are fiction, as far as I know & saw.

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