Nevada Democrats move to end presidential caucuses

[Alcibiades]

Pointlessly complicated? You stand in one corner of an elementary school gymnasium that represents the candidate you want to vote for, and if that candidate doesn't make up a large enough part of a room, you go to a different corner. It doesn't take a doctorate to understand that concept, dude.

Undemocratic? In what way? You still get to vote for your favorite candidate, with the added benefit that uninformed voters are able to learn about other candidates and what their goals are.

Imagine you're a supporter of underdog candidate Jackie Johnson, running against establishment favorite Johnny Jackson.

You show up at the caucus (because luckily you had the evening off work), and there you find you are one of thirty voters in your precinct.

It turns out that you are one of only three voters for Jackie Johnson.  The other 27 are all for Johnny Jackson.

Your next door neighbor, Brenda, is standing in the Jackson group, and is looking over at you with her arms folded and a smirk on her face.  Last week she had reminded you to take your trash cans back in the same day they get picked up, not the next day or the day after.  Brenda is a bitch.

A caucus worker approaches your small group and tells you all that unfortunately, Jackie Johnson has not reached viability in your precinct.  The three of you will either need to realign, or go home.  You really don't want to vote for Johnny Jackson, at least not in the primaries.  You have your reasons.

Worst of all, you can see across the other side of the gymnasium another neighbor (a friend of yours) who lives a couple streets away.  His house must be in a different precinct.  You can see that he is also in the Jackie Johnson group, and they actually appear to have won the precinct!  Good for them, but sucks for you!  You may as well have not shown up at all.

You hope not to bump into Brenda tomorrow.

So? None of this is an indictment of the caucus process. Jackie would've lost anyways, and so the system is irrelevant in terms of the actual number. As for Brendas, if you don't believe in your positions enough to actually stand up for them, you shouldn't be voting for them anyways.

You still haven’t addressed the central points of caucuses’ abysmally low turnouts, and their violation of the right to a secret ballot.

[Alcibiades]

Pointlessly complicated? You stand in one corner of an elementary school gymnasium that represents the candidate you want to vote for, and if that candidate doesn't make up a large enough part of a room, you go to a different corner. It doesn't take a doctorate to understand that concept, dude.

Undemocratic? In what way? You still get to vote for your favorite candidate, with the added benefit that uninformed voters are able to learn about other candidates and what their goals are.

Imagine you're a supporter of underdog candidate Jackie Johnson, running against establishment favorite Johnny Jackson.

You show up at the caucus (because luckily you had the evening off work), and there you find you are one of thirty voters in your precinct.

It turns out that you are one of only three voters for Jackie Johnson.  The other 27 are all for Johnny Jackson.

Your next door neighbor, Brenda, is standing in the Jackson group, and is looking over at you with her arms folded and a smirk on her face.  Last week she had reminded you to take your trash cans back in the same day they get picked up, not the next day or the day after.  Brenda is a bitch.

A caucus worker approaches your small group and tells you all that unfortunately, Jackie Johnson has not reached viability in your precinct.  The three of you will either need to realign, or go home.  You really don't want to vote for Johnny Jackson, at least not in the primaries.  You have your reasons.

Worst of all, you can see across the other side of the gymnasium another neighbor (a friend of yours) who lives a couple streets away.  His house must be in a different precinct.  You can see that he is also in the Jackie Johnson group, and they actually appear to have won the precinct!  Good for them, but sucks for you!  You may as well have not shown up at all.

You hope not to bump into Brenda tomorrow.

So? None of this is an indictment of the caucus process. Jackie would've lost anyways, and so the system is irrelevant in terms of the actual number. As for Brendas, if you don't believe in your positions enough to actually stand up for them, you shouldn't be voting for them anyways.

You still haven’t addressed the central points of caucuses’ abysmally low turnouts, and their violation of the right to a secret ballot.

Neither of those are problems.

Yes they are.

[Alcibiades]

Pointlessly complicated? You stand in one corner of an elementary school gymnasium that represents the candidate you want to vote for, and if that candidate doesn't make up a large enough part of a room, you go to a different corner. It doesn't take a doctorate to understand that concept, dude.

Undemocratic? In what way? You still get to vote for your favorite candidate, with the added benefit that uninformed voters are able to learn about other candidates and what their goals are.

Imagine you're a supporter of underdog candidate Jackie Johnson, running against establishment favorite Johnny Jackson.

You show up at the caucus (because luckily you had the evening off work), and there you find you are one of thirty voters in your precinct.

It turns out that you are one of only three voters for Jackie Johnson.  The other 27 are all for Johnny Jackson.

Your next door neighbor, Brenda, is standing in the Jackson group, and is looking over at you with her arms folded and a smirk on her face.  Last week she had reminded you to take your trash cans back in the same day they get picked up, not the next day or the day after.  Brenda is a bitch.

A caucus worker approaches your small group and tells you all that unfortunately, Jackie Johnson has not reached viability in your precinct.  The three of you will either need to realign, or go home.  You really don't want to vote for Johnny Jackson, at least not in the primaries.  You have your reasons.

Worst of all, you can see across the other side of the gymnasium another neighbor (a friend of yours) who lives a couple streets away.  His house must be in a different precinct.  You can see that he is also in the Jackie Johnson group, and they actually appear to have won the precinct!  Good for them, but sucks for you!  You may as well have not shown up at all.

You hope not to bump into Brenda tomorrow.

So? None of this is an indictment of the caucus process. Jackie would've lost anyways, and so the system is irrelevant in terms of the actual number. As for Brendas, if you don't believe in your positions enough to actually stand up for them, you shouldn't be voting for them anyways.

You still haven’t addressed the central points of caucuses’ abysmally low turnouts, and their violation of the right to a secret ballot.

Neither of those are problems.

Yes they are.

How so?

1. The secret ballot is pretty foundational in ensuring free and fair elections by preventing voter intimidation.

2. It’s obviously desirable to have as high a turnout as possible to increase democratic legitimacy. Caucuses present a needless barrier to enabling people to quickly and easily vote - and the truly shocking statistics bear that out. When you claim that low turnout doesn’t matter, you kind of sound like a Republican defending voter ID or reduced early voting.

[Alcibiades]

How is comparatively decreased turnout not a problem to you?

Because it literally doesn't matter? If someone doesn't want to vote, whether they don't want to or don't care to, then that's their right.

Again, caucuses create a needless barrier to voting. There are plenty of people who might want to vote in a caucus but don’t have the time to take part in one. This argument is little better than Republican apologetics for voter suppression.

[Alcibiades]

Again, caucuses create a needless barrier to voting. There are plenty of people who might want to vote in a caucus but don’t have the time to take part in one. This argument is little better than Republican apologetics for voter suppression.

Once again, if you don't care enough about voting in a primary election to make time for it, you probably aren't the kind of person who should vote anyways.

What about if I’m working at the same time as the caucus, caring for a relative, or am ill? There’s no compelling reason why people should be forced to stand around in a room for ages to vote.

[Alcibiades]

This is a private party event. This is not a public election. A primary is not a public election. If you do not understand that you are frankly not intelligent enough to engage in this discussion. A caucus is no different than any decision made by a county party convention, state party convention, or national party convention, where for all decisions made they normally do not allow private ballots because the establishment want to control the process and use peer pressure, and viva voce and hands raising are very typical.

If you're going to tell me caucuses are a wrong way to conduct things then almost every Republican and Democratic county party, state party, and national party in the country should be required to change the methods for how they conduct themselves not only in choosing their leadership but setting their bylaws, approving committee reports, making decisions, etc., otherwise you're being hypocritical. And if you think they should change, great, go to your next county party convention, become a delegate to the state and national party conventions and try to implement change. Tell me how it works out for you. If you even get to the point of having a vote that fails miserably you did pretty well.

Most of the discussion of this thread falls under the category of "a bunch of Talk Elections posters that think they know how politics works are completely ignorant about how political parties operate".

I am actually quite sympathetic to the argument that the US uses too many primaries for a variety of minor offices, but the presidential nominee is a pretty big deal that everyone should have an equal chance of voting for. I think the distinction between county dogcatcher and president is a pretty clear one that most people should be able to grasp. Just because the Iowa and Nevada Dems can, doesn’t mean they should.

(PS: A tip - wantonly insulting other posters’ intelligence doesn’t exactly strengthen your argument.)