Why Caucuses Have Got to Go

Iowa friends - i couldn't find a Nevada caucus meme, or i would've used that instead.

This is the rare political post making a bi-partisan proposition :).  I live in the great state of Nevada, where we just had our primary caucuses.  Though we don't get the Iowa treatment from either the candidates or the national media, we do still get a smattering of attention from both thanks to our third in the nation primary status.  This was my first time participating in a caucus, and though it was a fun and memorable experience, I think the caucuses should be switched to secret ballot for the following 3 reasons:

1) Caucuses are not Nearly as Accessible as Secret Ballots 

Caucuses require you to show up at a certain day and time, to be there for at least 2-3 hours, and often to be on your feet for awhile / climb gym stairs / move around multiple times.  These are just some of the groups that this system excludes:
-people who work during this time or who have made other important commitments
- people who care for others and can't get a substitute caregiver
- people who can't leave the house, can't be around big groups for health reasons, can't be on their feet for hours, etc.
- people who don't want their voting decisions to be public (one participant described the process as "like an awkward middle school dance")

I think the idea is that you get people who are most "committed" to attend this kind of voting, and these are the people who should get to help the party choose the candidate.  But in reality, it ends up excluding a lot of people that (especially for Dems) make up the bulk of the electorate in the general election.  You end up with people who can afford to take time off work, or get child care, or just have more leisure time on their hands - and my anecdotal observation is that this group looks pretty white, middle to upper class, and older - which only represents a narrow segment of voters.  This is inequitable - many of the people who would be MOST affected by things like changes to health care, universal childcare / preK, and other social programs - are unable to come have their say on which candidate's proposals would work best for them.  It's also bad strategy - if we want to nominate the candidate that most people in the party are energized by and will come back out to vote for in the general election, we need as much of the party as possible to have the opportunity to vote in the primaries.

Some of this could, theoretically, be solved by adding early or absentee voting.  This year, for the first time, Nevada allowed early voting for the caucuses.  But because the party didn't correctly anticipate interest in early voting, all of these voting sites had lines that were 3+ hours long and swamped with people - so in reality, most of the same accessibility issues that hamper caucuses also hampered early voting.  If early voting was expanded and an absentee option was added, I think that would fully solve the accessibility problem, but it also *hugely* changes the nature of a caucus, which I will detail in the "political junkie" section below.

2) The Popular Vote Better Shows where Candidates Stand

In caucuses, there's a system of first alignment and then second alignment, designed to consolidate votes to the top few candidates who pull in at least 15% of the total vote count.  The trouble with that, in an election like this, is that when votes are pretty evenly distributed among several candidates, it can vastly misrepresent how badly one candidate did, and how well another candidate did.

The easiest way to illustrate this is to describe how things went for the 3 moderate candidates in my precinct.  Candidates needed to reach a threshold of 15% of voters in order to be "viable" and to get a delegate for the county convention.  In my precinct, the magic number to be viable was 19 votes (out of about 150 voters).  Joe Biden received exactly 19 votes, Pete Buttigieg received 18, and Amy Klobuchar received 13 - a relatively even split.  After the first count, people had to move and land on a candidate that was viable (or else, not have your vote count towards a county delegate).  Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg each gained a couple votes in this reconfiguration, while the Amy Klobuchar supporters reluctantly split off to their second choices.  In the final count, Biden and Pete each got 2 delegates, while Amy Klobuchar got 0.  Not an accurate representation of where people stood walking in.

3) Secret Ballot Provides better Speed and Accuracy of Results

The reason small population states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada get so much attention in the early weeks of the primary season is because the results of these elections give the country an idea of who's in the lead, who's gathering momentum, etc.  Both of the early caucuses took more than a full day to report their results (as opposed to New Hampshire, a secret ballot state, which was able to report its results within a couple hours).  As a spectator, it's extremely frustrating when it takes more than a day for results to come in.  For the candidates who finish in the top couple spots, they lose a lot of the momentum that speedy reporting of a win can provide.

More important is accuracy.  It was informative to attend the caucus and see exactly how it all goes down.  The count is done by a raise of hands, counted and recounted by two members of the Democratic party (and sometimes counted a third time because the first two counts don't match).  Then the results are yelled to the secretary, who often needs it repeated several times because we're in a noisy gymnasium with several other precincts.  Then they add the in-person results to the early voting results, using a calculator.  Can you see the number of spots in this process where there's room for error?!  (If any election lawyer happens to stumble upon this post, I did not spot any actual errors happen - don't subpoena me!  I'm just pointing out that while there's very little room for miscount or miscommunication in a secret ballot, there is a vast ballroom for error in the caucus process.)

Addendum (this one's for the political process junkies):  how did they do early voting under the caucus system, and how did they incorporate those early votes during the caucus?

Early voting, as mentioned above, was used much more heavily than expected by the party.  Consequently, there were 3 hour lines at voting sites and some people (myself included!) had to leave without voting.  However, many were able to take advantage of this option - about 2/3rds of voters in my precinct (and i believe this is representative of the state as a whole) voted early.  (Another signal that people prefer secret ballot!!)  To make it caucus-like, they had people mark their 3 favorite choices in order.

If you attended caucus day, you chose your first alignment without knowing where the early vote stood.  Because so many people early voted, almost everyone (except Bernie supporters) had to wait and see if their candidate was viable.  Once people had committed to their first alignment vote and the count was taken, then the early vote was revealed.  This created some extra excitement, but also took away the ability for people to make strategic decision making based on how the numbers were going.

 It was the same with the second realignment - no early votes were revealed until in-person voters had made their decisions.  So again, no one could strategize based on how the numbers were landing.  Also, early voters did not hear the speeches and the political maneuvering that happened throughout the caucus process (which was the part that I found fun and memorable).

In conclusion - most states have already moved away from caucuses.  Only 4 states still use the caucus system.  It's time for Nevada to move to secret ballot!  (Feel free to share your caucus thoughts and feelings in the comments!)