Category Archives: 2020 Convention

Winnowing Out???

By tmess2 | Published February 12, 2020

Historically, the main role played by the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary is to narrow the field.  While, for different reasons, they are not necessarily representative of what it takes to win the nomination or the general election, they are both small enough that even candidates not well-known to the general public have a chance to make their case to the voters.  (Of course, for all of its flaws, the party-sponsored debates are eliminating some of that aspect of Iowa and New Hampshire.)  And candidates who fail to show any signs of life in these two states tend to lose their supporters (both financially and vote-wise) who begin to look for somebody who has a chance at making it to the convention.

This year seems like it might be a bit different than in the past.  In part due to the chaos that was Iowa, nobody dropped out after Iowa.  Last night, when it was clear that the results were not going to be there for them, Senator Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang announced that they had reached the end of the road.  And Governor Deval Patrick is apparently taking time to consider if he still has a path forward.  Bu that seems to be the extent of the winnowing that we will see for now.

With the possible exception of Representative Tulsi Gabbard, the remaining candidates each seem to think that they have a path forward that, at least, justifies staying in the race a little bit longer.  Both Vice-President Joe Biden and Tom Steyer have invested heavily in South Carolina.  Biden still leads the polls in South Carolina and Steyer is either second or third depending upon which poll you credit.  If they can hold onto that support, South Carolina would breathe new life into their campaign.  As the last remaining person of color in the race, Governor Deval Patrick apparently hopes that he can become the second choice of South Carolina voters in Biden’s support collapses. Continue Reading...

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Dem convention looking for 15,000 volunteers

By Matt | Published February 10, 2020

The 2020 Democratic National Convention needs a lot of volunteers:

The aim is to sign up 15,000 people to help with the convention and the crush of 50,000 delegates, media and tourists that will come to Milwaukee, July 13-16.

There’s a minimum age of 16 to volunteer during convention week, but there will be opportunities for all ages to participate at events in the coming months, organizers said. Continue Reading...

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Ranked Choice Voting and the Primaries

By tmess2 | Published December 29, 2019

As the year comes to a close, we are approximately five weeks from the first votes of the 2020 election.  This post is to highlight one of the new features of this election — that several states will be using ranked choice voting.  (As described further below, Nevada will be using ranked-choice voting to allow early voters to participate in the caucuses.   Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and Wyoming will be using ranked-choice voting in a party-run primary.  Maine will be using ranked-choice voting in a state-run primary.)

In the past, we have had something similar to ranked choice voting in some of the caucus states.  Typically, many of the caucus states allow attendees to realign after the first vote if their preferred candidate does not receive enough votes to qualify for a delegate.  Of course, when this process occurs at a caucus, the attendees have some idea of where the candidates currently stand and have the ability to negotiate delegate slots in exchange for moving as a bloc.  (Even at the handful of remaining caucus, the ability to make deals will be greatly reduced.  In the past, it was possible — for example — for Richardson supporters to move to Edwards in exchange for a pledge that one of the delegate slots would go to a Richardson supporter who would be a free agent at the county convention.  Under the new rules, the national delegate allocations are locked after the precinct convention significantly reducing the value of such delegate deals.)

Ranked choice voting requires voters to decide in advance whom they would support if their candidate is not viable.  For the most part, there has not been large support for moving to ranked choice voting in general elections in this country.  For a variety of reasons, the two major parties are more dominant in the U.S. than in most other countries.  (For example, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all held parliamentary elections last year.  In those elections, the two main parties had a combined vote total of 67-76% of the vote.  By contrast, in the 2018 house elections, the two main parties had over 98% of the vote.  Even at the low point of the 1992 election, the two main parties combined for over 80% of the vote.)  The absence of significant votes for third-party candidates means that — most of the time — the winning candidate in U.S. elections gets a majority of the vote in their district.  (Again for comparison, in the 2019 elections abroad, the winning candidate only had a plurality in about one-third of the districts in the United Kingdom, and about two-thirds of the districts in Canada and Australia.  By contrast, combining the House, the Senate, and state-wide races, the winning candidate in the 2018 elections in the U.S. only had a plurality in 28 contests — less than five percent of the races. ) Continue Reading...

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Virtual Voting and the 2020 Nomination

By tmess2 | Published August 31, 2019

As Doc Jess noted yesterday, the Rules and By-Laws Committee (the party entity with responsibility for reviewing state party delegate selection plans) has found problems with the virtual caucus proposed by Iowa.  The concerns, however, extend beyond Iowa.  According to news reports, the RBC has also made a similar decision concerning Nevada’s delegate selection rules.

As I noted several weeks ago, there are now seven states left that do not use a state-run primary  with Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming being the last pure caucus states and Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and North Dakota using party-run primaries.  In the revised delegate selection rules, Rule 2.G suggested that the RBC would consider plans that allowed internet voting as a form of absentee voting if the proposed plan included sufficient security assurances.  In its recent decision, the RBC apparently decided that — under current conditions — such assurances are not possible.  It is, however, understandable why Iowa and Nevada put forth proposals that relied on internet voting.  Rule 2.K.8 requires that parties using a party-run process create some alternative means of voting for those who are unable to participate in person on the day established for the caucus/party-run primary.

In light of these two provisions in the national rules, it’s not just Iowa that has included the possibility of electronic voting.  The draft plans in Alaska, Iowa, and Nevada include provisions for electronic voting.  The plans in Hawaii and North Dakota  opted to use mail-in voting instead of electronic voting.  (Alaska’s plan also includes absentee voting, so they might just need to eliminate the electronic voting.)  The plan in Kansas notes absentee/advanced voting as a possibility without further details.  If I am reading their plan correctly, Wyoming permits surrogate voting (which looks to be a proxy vote permitted in limited circumstances).  (I am not sure that proxy voting is allowed by the national rules — although it looks like Wyoming has used it previously from the comments submitted on their plan.  However, Wyoming’s plan has other problems that will probably require them to redraft their plans.) Continue Reading...

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Delegates for convention spread throughout the midwest

By Matt | Published August 26, 2019

No, not really. Just in Wisconsin and nearby Illinois:

Here’s the regional breakdown: Continue Reading...

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2020 Delegate Selection Plans

By tmess2 | Published August 7, 2019

While it has taken some time to get plans from all of the states and territories, it appears that all of the delegate selection plans for 2020 have now been sent to the Rules and By-laws Committee (you may remember them from 2008) for review.  One of the key issues for this current set of plans has been how many caucus states there will be for 2020.

Caucuses have been a catch 22 for both sides of the establishment vs. activist debate.  On the one hand, the caucus system rewards organization which — at least in the past — gave an edge to the establishment.  On the other hand, in recent cycles, caucuses reward the candidates with the most enthusiastic supporters — which has tended to be the candidates supported by grass roots progressive activists.  On the third hand, the advantage for the activists come from a system that puts obstacles in the place of broad participation — so, while that system, benefits progressive activists, the basic structure is contrary to some basic principles that progressives hold.   As a result, the rules changes after the 2016 cycle were definitely designed to promote movement away from caucuses and to encourage those that remained to take steps to increase participation, and those changes have had an effect.

In 2016, thirty-seven states and two territories (D.C. and Puerto Rico) had government-run primaries.  Democrats Abroad had a party-run primary.  Finally, thirteen states and four territories held a variation on a caucus — some more open than others. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Selection Plans — Kansas

By tmess2 | Published May 4, 2019

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.  Continue Reading...

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Delegate Selection Plans — Wyoming and Update

By tmess2 | Published April 13, 2019

As more delegate selection plans are posted on-line, we have two states that have confirmed that they are switching from a caucus to a state-run primary.  The first is Minnesota.  Previously, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party had informed the Minnesota Secretary of State that it would be participating in the state-run primary, but we now have the draft plan which bases delegate allocation on the results of the primary.  The other state is Washington.  When we looked at the draft plan for Washington last month, the Washington Democrats had submitted two plans — one based on the caucus and one based on the primary.    Since then, the state of Washington finalized the scheduling of the primary for March (moving it up from May) and, at last weekend’s state committee meeting, the Washington Democrats opted for the primary-based plan.

With these two changes, we were down to a handful of states.  Yesterday, Wyoming released their draft plan for 2020.  Wyoming is keeping with a caucus system using, as in the past, a county caucus as the first step.  While there is not a specific set date in the plan, it does indicate an intent to hold the county caucuses on a weekend in March which would be earlier than the mid-April date from 2016.  To meet the goals of making access to the caucuses easier for voters, Wyoming is tentatively calling for allowing those who are unable to attend the county caucuses to participate by submitting a “surrogate affidavit.”  The exact details of how this will work is still being discussed and is not clear from the current draft.  (The name suggests a proxy vote, but my hunch is that — either at the final plan approved by the state or the final plan as amended in response to the national Rules and By-laws committee requests — it will be more like a typical absentee ballot.) 

The Wyoming plan uses the preference vote at the county caucuses to elect state convention delegates.  It uses a separate preference vote at the state convention to allocate the national convention delegates.  This part of the plan is clearly contrary to the national party rules.  In relevant part, Rule 2.K.5 requires that the delegate allocation be locked in based on the final preference vote at the first determining step.  In Wyoming’s plan, the first determining step is the county caucuses.   As such, assuming that Wyoming does not correct this part of the plan in the final draft, it is likely that the Rules and By-laws Committee will require a change prior to approving Wyoming’s plan.  Given what the other states are doing, Wyoming will probably be given the option of using either the raw vote totals (which they have used in the past) or the state convention delegates won.  As noted in previous posts, using state convention delegates won eliminate the effect of high turnout in some parts of the state but can also penalize candidates who are get just over 15% of the raw vote state-wide (as those candidates are likely to miss the threshold in some of the counties converting 13% of the vote in those counties into 0% of the delegates potentially causing the candidate to slip beneath 15% if the delegates won state-wide).  Continue Reading...

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Delegate Selection Rules — Alaska, Maine, and Utah

By tmess2 | Published April 6, 2019

At this time last week, eight of the eighteen states that had used caucuses or party-run primaries in 2016 had released their delegate selection plans for 2020.  This week three of the remaining ten released their plans and they are a very mixed bag.

This week, we start out west in Alaska.  In 2016, Alaska used a traditional caucus process with the caucuses occurring at the legislative district level.  When it came to allocating delegates to the national convention, Alaska used the raw vote totals from the legislative district caucuses to allocate the “district-level” delegates, but used the votes of the state convention delegates to allocate the pledged party leader and at-large delegates.

For 2020, Alaska is switching to a party-run primary that will allow early voting (either electronic or by mail-in absentee ballot).  Additionally, the party will run voting centers in key locations that will be open for at least four hours on the primary/caucus date (although there is conflicting language in the draft concerning the times that these centers will be open).  All of the delegates to the national convention will be allocated based on the results of the party-run primary.  (Like many “primary” states, Alaska will continue to use the local caucuses to choose delegates to the state convention which will elect the actual national convention delegates.) Continue Reading...

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Delegate Selection Rules — Hawaii

By tmess2 | Published March 30, 2019

This week we continue our review of the draft delegate selection plans from the 2016 caucus states with Hawaii.  The focus of this on-going review has been how these states are implementing the new provisions for state parties that do not have the option of or choose not to use a state-run primary.  Under Rule 2.K of the DNC’s Delegate Selection Rules, such state parties must make efforts to increase participation in these party-run processes and (just like states that use a state-run primary) the state must use the vote at the “first-determining step” to allocate its pledged delegates to candidates.  Of course, the simple way to comply with these rules is to follow the suggestion to use a state-run primary which is what this week’s draft plan from Nebraska does (like prior draft plans from Colorado and Idaho and one of the two draft plans from Washington). 

For states that do not have a state-run primary in the Spring of 2020 that they can use, however, the only option is to use a party-run process.  In 2016, Hawaii used a traditional precinct caucus.  The individuals present at those caucuses cast a presidential-preference vote.  The results of that preference vote from the individual precincts were totaled and used to determine the allocation of district-level and state-level (party leader and at-large) delegates.

Since the allocation of delegates in Hawaii already complies with Rule 2.K, the issue for Hawaii was what steps to take to make it easier for Democrats to participate in the caucus process.  For 2020, Hawaii has opted to use a party-run primary (sometimes called a firehouse primary) instead of a traditional caucus.  Under this system, there will be two ways that voters can participate in this primary.  First, a person can vote absentee by mail.  Apparently, all individuals registered as Democrats by February 18 will receive a mail-in ballot by March 3.  If the voter would rather vote absentee, they can mail in that ballot at any time before March 28.  Second, a person can vote in person on April 4 during the eight-hour voting period.  Individuals choosing to use the in-person option apparently will be able to vote at any location even if it is not their “home precinct.”  (For the most part, there should not be much of an issue in making sure that a ballot is counted in the right congressional district.  The only island that is in the First Congressional District is Oahu.  Only a small number of voters from the First Congressional District will be on another island on April 4 and likewise only a small number of voters from the other islands will be on Oahu on April 4.  The issue is most likely to be voters from Oahu casting votes in the part of Oahu that is in the “other” district.) Continue Reading...

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