Most voters in most states (heck even most voters in Iowa) have never experienced anything like the Iowa Caucuses. For most people, voting is going down to your local precinct (or maybe putting a ballot in the mail). You get a ballot from the election judge, fill it out in the privacy of a “booth,” and then drop it in the ballot box. (Or maybe, you use a touchscreen terminal in your precinct.) In any case, unless you have a long wait in line to get your ballot, you can be in and out of the precinct in less than fifteen minutes.
In Iowa, especially on the Democratic side, the precinct caucus is a meeting. After some introductory comments and business (like electing the chair and secretary of the caucus), the local representative of each candidate will get a chance to make a speech. The attendees will then divide into preference groups. After the initial division, a count is done of each preference group and the chair calculates which groups are “viable” (i.e. have a high enough percent to qualify for delegates to the county convention). At that point, there is a chance to realign. After the realignment, there is a second count. The actual allocation of delegates is based on the second count.
In the past, the first vote was a test vote. Regardless of whether your candidate had enough votes to win delegates or not, you were free to change your mind before the second vote. And this opportunity to change your vote gave the opportunity for strategic voting. For example, imagine that your precinct gets 5 delegates and there are 101 attendees. In the first round, 5 candidates get votes — candidate A got 31 votes, candidate B got 25 votes, candidate C got 20, candidate D got 14, and candidate E got 11. Under the pre-2020 rules, the supporters of the top three candidate had a choice, some of them could defect to candidate D or candidate E to help those candidates get to 16 attendees so that they to would get a delegate. Alternatively, they could make promises to those supporters (perhaps guaranteeing that if their candidate got a second or third delegate they would give that additional delegate to the supporters of the failed candidate). What deal was given might depend on which candidates were not viable and who was leading. If you were a supporter of candidate B and you thought that — if forced — the supporters of candidates D and E would support candidate A, you might be willing to send seven attendees to those two candidates so that everybody got 1 delegate from the precinct (effectively counting as a tied precinct toward the state numbers) rather than candidate A winning 3-1-1. On the other hand, if you think that they would naturally support candidate B, you might offer the delegate slot knowing that it would get you a 2-2-1 split (losing nothing to candidate A and beating candidate C).
Under the new rules, however, attendees don’t have to stay after the first vote. If your candidate gets to the required threshold for delegates (15% in most precincts), all of the attendees in that preference group complete pledge cards. At that point, they are not allowed to switch in the second round of voting and are free to leave if they don’t want to stick around for the actual selection of the delegates. Only the attendees supporting the non-viable candidates are free to switch. This new rules will put a lot more pressure on the precinct representatives of the candidates. Rather than being free to send attendees to other candidates in the second round, you are going to have to hold some supporters back in the first round and take a look at the rough divisions before the count begins. If you are a Sanders leader and Klobuchar looks to be a little bit short, perhaps you send the supporters that you had standing back not yet going to a preference group to the Klobuchar camp. But such a decision has to be made before the preference groups are locked in for the count. Because once all of your supporters are locked into your caucus, they can’t change to another candidate in the second round. In short, strategic voting is going to be much, much harder.
What is also going to make strategic voting harder in 2020 is the fact that the results on caucus night are binding. In the past, it was easy for supporters of non-viable candidates to trade their vote in the precinct for a county convention delegate. That county convention delegate could return to the original candidate (or go to their preferred alternative candidate) at the county convention. While the switch might alter who was reported as the “winner” in Iowa, it had no direct impact on the ultimate number of national convention delegates that a candidate would get from Iowa. This time, while the delegate will be free to caucus with another group at the county convention (and at later conventions) that post-precinct night switch will not impact the number of national convention delegates. And with the potential that two or three candidates could be hovering around 15% state-wide helping them get to 15% in your precinct might also help them win national convention delegates. With no chance for Sanders (for example) to pick up Warren supporters in a month at the county convention to get Sanders more national convention delegates, it may make less sense to help Warren do better in your precinct. Likewise, with the chance that Klobuchar (for example) might be right at 15% state-wide, it makes no sense for Biden folks to help Klobuchar get a delegate from the precinct (or for Klobuchar supporters to willingly join Biden’s group when they are close to getting a delegate from a precinct if they could just get a Yang voter or two to join their group.
Because this is the first time under the new rules, nobody really knows how this year’s process will differ from past Iowa Caucuses. New rules always have unexpected consequences, and it can take time for people to get a handle on what is the best way to handle things under a new set of rules. Which candidate’s team has the “best” approach to the many ways that events could develop in the different precincts may have an edge when it comes to the final count of state delegate equivalents which will be used to award national convention delegates.
