No one ever accused the Democratic party of being efficient. More likely descriptions would include unstrategic, unintelligent and, minus the 2006 midterms, borderline incompetent. One thing they are rarely accused of is being unfair, but one look at the train wreck better known as the primary elections may change that.
The selection process in flawed in several ways. First, many state don’t hold primaries, but instead hold caucuses which are fundamentally undemocratic. In a caucus, an individual must plan to spend a substantial amount of time in a meeting as people shuffle from one side of the room to another, switching sides and listening to people argue for their candidates.
While this may seem like an exercise in civic discourse, it is one only a small number of people can actually participate in, as caucuses are often too small, under-resourced, poorly organized, and confusing for voter. Moreover, if an individual is busy during the time the meetings are held, they are left out, a fact that hits working class families particular hard as many are forced to choice between their job and their vote.
All this leads to caucuses having anywhere from 30 to 75 percent fewer voters than primaries. While this system worked well in small states in the past, it was poorly designed to meet the massive turnout seen this year.
Yet even if your state holds a primary, it’s likely that those votes will not be decisive. With an Democratic electorate split roughly 50/50 between two dynamic candidates, the decision of who will be the nominee will likely fall to the so called “superdelegates,” people selected by the national party, not the voters, to have say in the process. These include members of the House, Senate and former presidents (Bill Clinton does indeed have a vote), but it also includes other party faithful like organizers (the youngest is a 21-year-old junior from Marquette University). These 795 delegates constitute 20 percent of the total vote at the convention and are completely free to vote for whomever they want regardless of the will of their constitutes, unlike the pledged delegates from each state who have to support who the people tell them to.
That’s not all. Superdelgates were added to the process in 1982 specially to make the votes of the people less important.
According to syndicate writer Susan Estrich, the party had had enough “fringe” voters (a code word for blacks, environmentalists and sexual minorities) showing up in large numbers at the primaries and voting for candidates who the establishment felt were undesirable such as George McGovern, whose liberal stances helped get him roundly defeated in 1972. They thus created superdelegates to ensure the party had more say in electing the nominees, which they did in choosing establishment favorite Walter Mondale in 1984.
While this may be seen by some as a acceptable argument about “electability,” it’s important to remember that Mondale also was roundly defeated, and the DNC has not had good luck in wining presidential elections of late anyway. The fact is the process is no longer defendable and smacks of cronyism. Frankly, this writer, as a college junior, feels deeply uncomfortable with a idea of a college junior holding the equivalent voting power of 10,000 American citizens.
Finally, the most important state in this election is likely to not even be a state, but the island of Puerto Rico. They are the last area to vote (June 7) and, despite having no electoral college votes in November, have 55 primary delegates, which is more than Wyoming, Idaho and New Hampshire combined.
Puerto Rico has a large number of unpledged delegates and a tradition of forcing all its delegates to go to the winner, which means it could functionally serve as a “winner take all” state, giving it almost as much power as California or New York in this process. Thus, even if a candidate lost the American popular vote and pledged delegate count, if they:
a. Win the Puerto Rico caucus and gets most of those delegates,
or
b. Overwhelmingly win the super delegates,
they could still get the nomination, even though it would contradiction to the will of the American people.
This is an abomination to the democratic process and a disgrace to the ideas of hope and change that have embodied this election. The solution is simple: Allocate delegates as a proportion of the national popular vote. This eliminates the selective “swing state” politics that has plagued general elections, and would give every American an equal say in the process.
Until then, there will never be a truly “Democratic” party nominee, for as long as candidates continue to be chosen by elites in smoke-filled rooms, America’s hopes for genuine democracy will go up in flames.