The Undemocratic Nature of Caucuses: My Personal Story .. Pat Bakalian
I had the opportunity to work on the Democratic primaries/caucuses in Iowa and Texas, and I do not believe that caucuses represent the will of the people.
In general, caucuses disenfranchise people who are disabled, older, single parents, parents with young children, people who work swing shifts, those going to night school, the physically fragile who cannot stand for long periods, and so on. We are a 24 hour culture. We’re leaving people out any time we choose one time and place to let people’s voices be heard. There are always hospitals to be staffed, restaurants serving customers, streets to be patrolled, janitors cleaning buildings. This is NOT democracy. People can’t vote absentee in a caucus and they have no voice.
Specifically, I saw in Texas people standing out in the cold and dark for hours – until 11:00 at night while many older people and people with small children had to leave. At one site there were 4 precincts voting at the same location with only 6 voting machines, it was mayhem and total chaos as there was no parking for primary or caucus voters. At one site voting didn't finish until about 1am! In many cases, the venue was too small causing a fire hazard, no precinct chairs showed up, and no one was trained on what to do to run the caucus. Due to crowded conditions, the sign up packets were inappropriately passed down the pews and impossible to monitor. In other cases the packets were incomplete with no more than one sign up sheet resulting in people making their own, and no calculation sheet for determining the number of delegates, so the caucus vote was done by "guess work" from the Obama campaign work sheet. The voting Judge was overwhelmed, monitoring who had actually voted in the primary at that precinct was impossible to do under many of these circumstances. There was no way that any checking of these voters was done as some didn't have their voter's registration form.
In Iowa the only way to vote for your candidate was to go to a caucus site for one two- hour period on one very cold (even by Iowans standards) night and stand up in front of your spouse and neighbors without the advantage to having your vote be private. I talked to many people who would have caucused but they had to work the second shift or take care of an elderly parent or sick child, or simply did not feel comfortable being so public with their vote.
· So far there have been 13 states that have held a caucus instead of a primary. Barack Obama has won 12 of these states. In the 2004 presidential elections, Republicans won in 9 of these states.
In Texas, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over 100,000, yet I believe she will lose the delegate count due to the state having poorly organized and poorly supervised caucuses.
· In Wyoming about 7,500 people caucused and they have 12 delegates. In my own Congressional District in California about 96,000 people voted and we have 5 delegates.
· At the Washington State caucus on Feb. 9 (the “official” contest recognized by the DNC to determine delegates to the Democratic Convention), a total of 30,000 people voted and 75 delegates were awarded. Their non-binding primary was held on Feb. 19 where 691,000 people voted and NO delegates were awarded.
Is this a democracy? Is this One Person, One Vote? Is this a way to pick a nominee who can best beat John McCain?
I urge you to look at the caucus vs. primary systems of picking our nominee and support Senator Hillary Clinton because she will be the strongest Democratic candidate to go up against John McCain.
Very Sincerely,
Pat Bakalian
pat@bakalianconsulting.com
first posted 04.07.08
