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...