Caucuses are undemocratic and un-Democratic

By Phil Bartlett, KC Becker, Melisa Franzen, and Bert Marley

This week, the Democratic National Committee will vote on the Unity Reform Commission’s report updating the process for nominating the candidate who will take on Trump. The report strived to bring all parts of the Democratic Party together after a contentious 2016 nominating contest and set the Party up for the greatest chance of success in 2020.

Much of the commission’s work focused on ensuring that as many voters could participate in the Democratic nomination process as possible, and that everyone’s vote actually mattered when picking our Party’s next nominee for President. This includes encouraging state governments to enact same-day or automatic voter registration, allowing absentee voting, fighting voter suppression tactics, and promoting inclusive primaries over restrictive caucuses.

We are writing to thank the DNC for its work to promote these “small d” democratic values to make our “big D” Democratic Party stronger. And we want to urge our colleagues and friends in states that still have caucuses to follow that lead, by switching to primaries like we have in our respective states.

In the 2016 Democratic nominating contest, 14 of the 50 states held caucuses instead of primaries. These contests are harder to access as they generally don’t allow any early voting or absentee voting, and they require individuals to appear at a certain location at a certain hour on a certain day and spend hours there just to cast their vote. This disenfranchises the elderly, the disabled community, college students, active military, working class folks, parents with small children, and countless others.

When you take all those factors together, it is no surprise that the average caucus in 2016 had a turnout that was about 20 points lower than the average primary.

But since then, four of those 14 states have decided to switch from a caucus to a primary in 2020. They are a regionally and culturally diverse bunch — Colorado, Idaho, Maine, and Minnesota.

In some cases, like Colorado, Maine, and Minnesota, it required state legislative leaders to pass legislation authorizing new primaries that both parties could access. The good news is that we were able to make this change even where we needed bipartisan support, as Republicans controlled at least one chamber of the state legislature in all three of those states. Democratic State Party leaders were also instrumental in enacting these changes to ensure as many Democratic voters as possible could cast a ballot to help select the nominee in 2020.

In Idaho, it only took the state party itself making a decision to move to a more inclusive voting system, as its state committee voted to use a primary that was already on the books there. One of the biggest factors in switching was the logistical burdens that operating a caucus puts on a state party that can better spend those resources elsewhere. Idaho was the first to move from a caucus to a primary this cycle in this way, but our hope is that it won’t be the last to do this before 2020.

Of the 10 remaining states, there are some that will have to go through the state legislature to establish a primary, but there are also quite a few that could simply do what Idaho did. We hope our friends in Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming will consider taking this step to enfranchise as many voters in their state as possible and ensure our Democratic Party is as welcoming to every potential voter as our values dictate. And those of us who have taken action already will need to continue to work diligently to ensure democracy endures. For example, in Maine, we must pass the funding for our new primaries in a future legislative session, or we might be forced to backslide back into conducting caucuses.

Switching from caucuses to primaries can be one bold step in our quest to strengthen our democracy and ensure our Party truly represents its members.

We hope our fellow Democrats will build on the Unity Commission Report to fight to make sure that every voter, regardless of their ability, race, income, or geography, can exercise their right to vote.

Rep. KC Becker is the Colorado House Majority Leader; Bert Marley is Chair of the Idaho Democratic Party; Phil Bartlett is Chair of the Maine Democratic Party; and Sen. Melisa Franzen is a Minnesota State Senator.