And no, this isn’t because of the fiasco in Iowa. That wasn’t because of the caucus. It was because of the Democratic Party of Iowa’s unreasonable trust in technology and an arrogant application developer who went live without sufficient testing and training. And then finally the Iowa party’s mishandling of their plan B.
No, this came to mind after I saw the results of the four days of early voting in Nevada ahead of the live caucus this past Saturday. The early voting saw 70,000 people cast ‘ballots’, while the 2016 Nevada caucus reportedly had 84,000 voters. The current total for 2020 is approaching 92,000 voters.
Yes, I realize that 2020 is potentially a more volatile election cycle than 2016 was and that we can expect voter turnout to be higher. But just on the face of it, it feels like the 2016 Nevada caucus disenfranchised about 8,000 voters. And that voters preferred flexible voting hours compared to the shorter time frame locked into a caucus.
Now the Democratic Party has been raising concerns for most of this century about voter suppression and gerrymandering. They shouldn’t be the agency actually suppressing the vote.
I recommend abandoning the caucus all together and replace it with primary elections nationwide…and include early voting options as well. We want to insure that everyone has an opportunity to get to the polls on their own schedule.
And the Dems need to step up their Get Out The Vote drives as well…the GOP have a leg up on that again this cycle.
And thank you Nevada for providing the early voting option to expose the deficiency in the caucus system!
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