Somewhat late in the process, Kansas Democrats have issued their draft delegate selection plan for 2020. Like the prior plans from Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota, Kansas will be using a party-run primary instead of their traditional caucus.
As with most of the other states that held a caucus in 2016, this plan authorizes registered democrats to participate in the primary either by a mail-in absentee ballot or by depositing a ballot at one of the party-run ballot centers on the primary day. Under the proposal, the party will mail a notice to all registered Democrats in early March 2020 explaining how to vote in the primary. Voters will be able to request an absentee ballot starting March 30. Any absentee ballot must be mailed by April 24. On primary day (May 2 — a Saturday), the ballot centers will be open for four hours (from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.).
The plan indicates that the ballots will use ranked-choice voting, but does not expressly explain how ranked-choice voting will work. In other states, if there are candidates how fail to meet the threshold for delegates, then their votes are redistributed (starting with the last-placed candidate) until all remaining candidates are over 15%. Ranked-choice voting should be applied separately at the congressional district and at the state-wide level. If, by the time of the state convention, a candidate “is no longer a candidate,” any at-large and pleo delegates that the candidate would have won will be proportionately reallocated to the remaining candidates.
With all of the 2016 caucus states having released their plans, the final numbers for the state parties are 3 staying with a traditional caucus (Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming), four switching to a party-run primary (Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and North Dakota), and six switching to a state-run primary (Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Nebraska, Utah, and Washington). Lastly, Maine is currently going with a caucus plan but has reserved the possibility of switching to a state-run primary if one of the prending presidential primary bills is adopted by the Maine Legislature. We are still waiting for draft plans from the four smaller territories (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, and Virgin Islands), but, in 2016, all four used a one tier caucus/convention system. It would be easy to convert all four to a party-run primary with delegates directly elected in the primary (similar to how states like Illinois and Pennsylvania work).
