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Tag Archives: 2020 Democratic Convention
Dems Release Convention Credential
It will be sent to all the delegates:
Posted in DNC
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Convention speakers announced
A list of main speakers for the four nights of the Democratic Convention has been released:
Monday: Featuring Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Representative Jim Clyburn, Convention Chairman Representative Bennie Thompson, Representative Gwen Moore, Former Governor John Kasich, Senator Doug Jones, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Former First Lady Michelle Obama
Tuesday: Featuring Former Acting US Attorney General Sally Yates, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Former Secretary of State John Kerry, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Former President Bill Clinton, and Former Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden
Posted in DNC
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Dems announce convention themes
Two hours each night:
The convention will take place over four nights from August 17-20, 2020 and will air live from 9:00-11:00 PM Eastern each night. Over the course of those four nights, programming centered around the following thematics will aim to unite Americans from coast-to-coast around Joe Biden’s vision to build a better future for all.
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Monday, August 17: We the People—This convention is about Americans rising up to take our country back—and move forward as a nation together. As we have learned throughout our history, when we stand united, we can overcome anything, including the monumental challenges we face today. With Joe Biden as president, ‘we the people’ will mean all the people.
Posted in DNC
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Biden to give acceptance speech in Delaware
Well, hopefully they give Milwaukee the convention in 2024. Word is that only Wisconsin Dems will be in Milwaukee in 2 weeks.
Meanwhile, after giving up on both Jacksonville and Charlotte, Trump has, of course, floated giving his acceptance speech from the White House, which, of course, is totally improper, and likely illegal.
Posted in 2020 Convention, DNC, Joe Biden, Milwaukee
Also tagged 2012 Democratic National Convention
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Dems prepare for virtual voting by delegates
Since the delegates won’t be in Milwaukee, voting at the 2020 Democratic Convention will be done by state, and by email:
Jason Rae, the Secretary of the Democratic National Committee, informed all certified delegates in a letter on Friday that voting on convention business will take place from August 3-15, with each delegate receiving a ballot specifically tailored to the delegate via “individualized and series identifiers.” …“Given the pandemic, the (Democratic National Convention Committee) has developed a voting system that will allow convention delegates to safely and securely cast ballots for all required votes. Each delegate will be sent an individualized ballot with unique identifiers via email,” reads Rae’s letter. “During the voting period, each certified delegate will receive a ballot and directions for completing and returning the ballot electronically.”
The process, according to the letter, will work like this: A delegate will fill out their ballot, which will includes questions about the Democratic platform and the party’s nominee, and send it to their state’s Democratic Party. Once a state party has all the ballots from their delegation, the state delegation’s chair “will submit a tally sheet to the Secretary’s Office that formally records the number of votes cast on each item of convention business,” Rae’s letter reads. The votes will be counted all at once on August 15, not as they come in. – CNN
Posted in DNC
2 Comments
Dems move Milwaukee convention to convention center, delegates need not travel
It will be the first Democratic convention in a convention center since 1984 in San Francisco, and the first major party convention in a convention center since the GOP in San Diego in 1996:
The Democratic National Convention will move out of Milwaukee’s professional basketball arena, and state delegations are being urged not to travel to the city because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, party officials said Wednesday.
…
Posted in 2020 Convention, COVID-19, Democrats, DNC, Milwaukee
Also tagged 2012 Democratic National Convention
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Delegate Selection Plans — Wyoming and Update
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).
Posted in 2020 Convention, Delegates
Also tagged 2020 Delegate Selection Plans, caucuses, Minnesota, Washington, Wyoming
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Delegate Selection Rules — North Dakota
In 2016, fourteen states and four territories used a caucus-based system to allocate pledged delegates to the candidates for president. This post is the third in a series on how the states that are choosing to retain a caucus-based system are proposing to respond to the DNC’s 2020 Delegate Selection Rules, particularly Rule 2.K, which have added emphasis to prior language encouraging state parties to take steps to make it easier for people who are unable to attend their local caucus meeting to participate and requiring that delegate allocation be based on the preferences in the initial round of caucuses (unlike the old rules which allowed the allocation to be made based on the preferences at the meeting that actually selected the delegates). The new rules also include a preference for a state-run primary. Of the fourteen states that had caucuses in 2016, four (Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Idaho) have already opted to switch to a state-run primary for 2020. In addition, at least two other states have primary bills either awaiting the Governor’s signature (Utah) or moving in the legislature (Maine — which has some weird features that may warrant a post if it passes and the Maine Democratic Party opts in). The first two posts covered Iowa which is sticking with a caucus system and Washington which put forward two plans (one primary-based and one caucus-based) with a final decision to come next month. That leaves six (or eight if you include Utah and Maine) states (and the four territories) to propose plans (all of which are supposed to be posted for public comment more than thirty days before approval by the state party with the state party supposed to submit the state party-approved plan to the Rules and By-laws Committee of the Democratic National Committee by May 3).
This week’s post covers the recent draft plan issued by North Dakota’s Democratic-NPL Party. In 2016, North Dakota had a caucus meeting at the legislative district-level and the allocation of state convention delegates from those meetings was used to allocate the national convention delegates. Additionally, there was no provision for “absentee” votes by those who could not attend the legislative district meeting.
Reflecting the DNC’s desire to improve participation in the caucus state, North Dakota is switching from caucus meetings to what is sometimes called a “firehouse” or party-run primary as its first step. In a traditional caucus system, voters must be present at the time scheduled for the start of the caucus with the vote taking place during the caucus. In a firehouse primary/caucus, the party opens polling places and voters can show up at any time during the voting period. In North Dakota, the proposal is to have local voting places which will be open for eight hours (from 11 a. m. to 7 p.m. on March 10). In addition, North Dakota will allow mail-in absentee voting.
Posted in 2020 Convention, Delegates, DNC, Primary Elections
Also tagged Firehouse Primary, North Dakota
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Delegate Selection Rules for 2020
This weekend, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) held its “Summer” Meeting. One of the items on the agenda was the RBC’s draft of the various documents that together comprise the rules for the 2020 nomination process. For first time readers of this site, the Democrats have a multi-step process for drawing up the rules for delegate selection. Typically, step one is a Festivus-type Commission in which the party head appoints a Commission drawing from all parts of the party for an airing of the grievances from the last cycle. (Sometimes, this step is skipped when a Democrat wins the White House, particularly when a Democratic incumbent is re-elected.) That Commission then drafts suggestions. Step Two is the Rules and By-laws Committee (RBC) of the DNC actually takes those suggestions (and other suggestions by RBC members) and amends the rules from the last cycle to incorporate those suggestions that have the support of the RBC. Step Three is that the full DNC then reviews and approves the new set of rules and issues them to the state parties. Step Four is that the state parties then (taking into account both legislative changes in their state and the new national rules) draft the state rules. Typically, the state rules need to be completed by the late spring/early summer of the year after the mid-term. Step Five is that the state rules are then submitted to the RBC for review for compliance with the national rules and approval (or directions to make changes to comply with the national rules).
The reports out of the Summer Meeting suggests that the RBC drafts were adopted essentially intact; so what follows is based on the draft plans that were approved by the RBC: the Call for the 2020 Convention and the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2020 Convention. (Both linked documents show the changes to the old rules.) There are several important details/changes in the draft documents from the RBC. (If you want to skip the technicalities of the rules, what these may mean in practical terms is at the end of this post.)
First, the 2020 Convention will take place in mid-July. (Call, Preamble). The DNC will select the site later this year or early next year. The delegate selection process will end by June 20, 2020. (Call, Part III).
Second, the formula for allocating delegates to the states remains relatively the same. A base of 3200 that allocates delegates based on the average of each state’s share of the popular vote (over the last three elections) and the state’s share of the electoral vote. (Call, Part I.B). A state can get additional delegates for going later in the process (a bonus for going in April with a larger bonus for going in May or June) and/or being part of a “regional cluster” (a minimum of three neighboring states occurring after the fourth Tuesday in March). (Call, Part I.C). Each state also gets 15% over its base delegation (for Pleged Party Leaders and Elected Official Delegates a/k/a PLEOs). (Call, Part I.D). For those territories (and Democrats Abroad) that do not have electoral votes, the rules assigns each territory a number of delegates. (Call, Part I.E). In terms of the composition within each state’s delegation — 75% of the base delegation is considered to be “district” delegates and 25% of the base delegation is considered to be the at-large delegation. (Rule 8.C). The sequence for choosing delegates remains district delegates then PLEO delegates then at-large delegates. (Rule 8, Rule 10, Rule 11).
Third, “superdelegates” (members of the DNC, elected officials, and certain former party leaders) are now “automatic delegates.” (Call, Part I.F&G&H). An automatic delegate can opt to run for a “pledged” delegate slot giving up their automatic status if they win. (Call, Part I.J). Those attending the convention as automatic delegates will not be eligible to cast a vote on the first ballot for President, but will be able to vote on later ballots. (Call, Part IX.C.7.b&c).
Fourth, the existing requirement that candidates for the Democratic nomination must be Democrats is beefed up by requiring candidates to sign an affirmation that they are Democrats. (Call, Part VI). In particular, the affirmation is that the candidate is a member of the Democratic Party, that the candidate will accept the nomination if the candidate wins, and the candidate will serve as a Democrat if elected. (Call, Part VI).
Fifth, the rules for state delegations on the various standing committees of the Convention (Rules, Platform, Credentials) are changed to recognize non-binary genders. (Call, Part VII.E). Such individuals do not count toward the requirement that the delegation be balanced between men and women. (Call, Part VII.E). A similar change is made to the rules regarding the state delegation to the convent. (Rule 6.C)
Sixth, there is a change to the rules regarding participation in the delegate selection process. The current version of Rule 2.C (defining who state parties must allow to participate) refers back to Rule 2.A and its subparts. The new version just refers back to Rule 2.A. Whether this change is stylistic only or substantive is unclear. This question could matter because Rule 2.A.1 requires that a voter’s party preference must be publicly recorded before a person is eligible to participate. (Currently in states that do not publicly record in which primary a voter opts to vote, the state parties record participants in delegate selection meetings on a form signed by the participants in which the participants self-identify as democrats.) However, Rule 13.H now requires that — if a state has party registration — any candidate for delegate must be a registered Democrat.
Seventh, in some sections, the rules replace “primary” with “process.” (Rule 2.F&G). The rules also now include a provision encouraging the use of a state-run primary, but still permit other “processes” (i.e. caucuses) with certain requirements, including efforts to allow participation by those who unable to attend their local caucus. (Rule 2.K; Rule 2.K.1&8-9). One of these new requirements is that caucus states must now record and count the initial first preference vote of attendees and the allocation of delegates to the national convention must be based on and fixed by that initial first preference vote. (Rule 2.K.4-8).
Eighth, the timing rules remain the same from 2016 — Iowa followed by New Hamphshire followed by Nevada followed by South Carolina in February and everyone else beginning on the first Tuesday in March and all “first determining steps” — primaries and initial caucuses — occurring on or before the second Tuesday in June.
Ninth, in a minor change to the “threshold” for earning delegates, if no candidate reaches fifteen percent, the threshold will be half of the vote total of the candidate who finishes first. (Rule 14.F).
What will be the practical effect of these changes? If I understand the intent of these rules and the states are required to comply with them, some of the caucus states may see significant changes to how they announce results and allocate delegates. For example, for the purpose of electing county or district level delegates, many caucus states have a period of time after the “first preference” vote to allow attendees who support a candidate beneath the fifteen percent threshold to either move to a viable candidate or persuade supporters of other candidates to join them and bump their candidate over fifteen percent. These states then report how many delegates were won to the next level where the same process repeats with delegates only being allocated at the district and state conventions. Under the new rules, while these same processes for choosing delegates to county conventions will continue, the initial vote will now be reported and that vote total will be what drives the allocation of delegates. This change could lead to dramatically different outcomes from the early caucus states.
For example, in Iowa in 2016, Governor O’Malley won 0.54% of the delegates to the county conventions. That probably translated into getting around 5-10% of the initial vote. Those voters then went to another candidate. (Did they uniformly go to Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton or was their behavior based on precinct-by-precinct deals?) Imagine how differently the subsequent process would have gone if instead of announcing essential a 50-50 tie, the results had been Senator Sanders of Secretary Clinton winning by 10%. Or back in 2008, Joe Biden won about 1% of the county convention delegates and Bill Richardson won about 2%. If you again assume that translates to around 10% of the vote, who did that vote go to on the second round. If it mostly went to Barrack Obama, think about how a three-way tie between Secretary Clinton, President Obama, and John Edwards would have impacted the future primaries.
The other big change is the one that has gotten the most attention — the loss of the vote on the first ballot for automatic delegates. The impact of this change may depend on how these delegates act (and how the losing candidates act). The last two competitive cycles have seen the battle for pledged delegates continue through the last primary. In 2016, there were no other candidates who won any delegates. In 2008, however, John Edwards won 32. In 2004, the early “dropouts” won over 200 delegates. If we have another close battle that goes to the last primary and no candidate wins an absolute majority (the situation in 2008), then the dropout candidates and the automatic delegates could have an impact on whether the convention goes to a second ballot. If the dropout candidates release their delegates and request them to vote for the “winner” of the primaries, then things should work as normal (particularly if the automatic delegates make clear what will happen on the second ballot). On the other hand, if the dropout candidates obstruct the process, there will be a second ballot on which anything could happen. (My preference would have been for a solution that would have reduced the impact of the automatic delegates, perhaps a half-vote or quarter-vote similar to how some of the territories increase the size of their delegations. However, that was not an option under the resolution creating this cycle’s commission.)
The change that I, for one, will wait and see what guidance is coming from the RBC is the change to gender balance to reflect the possibility of non-binary genders. Depending on the guidance, I can see practical issues related to implementation. For example, in most states, the delegate election process has a separate ballot for men and women. With non-binary genders in the mix, it seems like the logical process will now be a uniform ballot — at least if a candidate self-identifies as non-binary. (And in states that elect delegates on the primary ballot, will the Secretaries of State modify the ballot in accordance with the party’s directives — probably since the Republicans do not have separate elections for male and female delegates.) Given the number of different scenarios for potential finishes, how do those scenarios work in practice. (Easy if the non-binary candidate finishes in the mix for delegates or clearly finishes outside the mix. On a uniform ballot, however, it is possible that you will have to skip over male candidates because the male slots are filled to get to female candidates to fill the female slots or vice versa. What if the non-binary gender candidate is somewhere between the last male slot and the last female slot.) I also know that, in my state, we have traditionally pre-assigned the “odd” district delegate slot to assure state-wide gender balance after the election of district delegates. With the potential for non-binary gender candidates competing, I do not know if we will be able to do that (as such candidates might take the “odd” slot in some districts but not others throwing the attempt at balance off when all districts are combined.)
In short, a lot is staying the same, but the changes could make things interesting in another 18 months.
Posted in Delegates, Democratic Party, DNC, Primary Elections, Superdelegates
Also tagged caucuses, Delegate Selection Rules, Superdelegates.
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2020 Democratic Convention — Unity and Reform Commission — Part 2
One of the issues in the last several primary cycles — for both parties — have been the role of unpledged delegates. There are several reasons why both parties designate certain party officials (and on the Democratic side, elected officials) as automatic delegates. First, it removes these individuals from the competition for the “regular” delegate slots making it easier for grassroots activists to compete for a delegate slot. Second, these individuals have a slightly different perspective than the voters. While everyone wants the party to win the White House, state party officials are also responsible for winning as many down ballot races as possible. Elected officials want to win their own races. As such, in theory, if the leading candidate seems too extreme or flawed, the unpledged delegates could swing the nomination to the second-placed candidate. Before 2016, the Republicans decided to bind their automatic delegates based on primary results in their state. After 2016, some Republicans might regret that their automatic delegates no longer had that power given the continuing fiasco that is Donald Trump. However, in neither party, the automatic delegates have ultimately supported the candidate that won the most delegates; so this theoretical power has never been used.
Even though this power has never been used to change the result, many Democrats have wanted to reduce the power of the automatic delegates. The resolution that created the Unity and Reform Commission mandated that, while elected officials (Senators, Representatives, Governors) and distinguished party leaders (e.g., former presidents, former DNC chairs, former speakers/caucus leaders) would remain unpledged, DNC members would be pledged in accordance with the primary results. The task for the Unity and Reform Commission was to make recommendations as to how to handle this process. First, the recommendations distinguish between DNC members who represent the states (state party chairs and the DNC members elected by the state parties) and other DNC members (at-large members and those who represent groups of elected officials). The “state” members will be bound based on the state results; and the “national” DNC members will be bound based on the national results.
On the issue of exactly how to bind these automatic delegates, the Commission did not reach a final recommendation but, instead, suggested two alternatives. The first would just pool the delegate votes with no individual votes on the first ballot. The second would create a mechanism for assigning the automatic delegates to specific candidates based on the delegates personal wishes with some random mechanism if the personal preferences do not line up with the required allocation. Unlike regular delegates, however, the automatic delegates would be absolutely bound to these allocations.
An issue that was not addressed in the recommendation but will need to be addressed by the rules and by-laws committee is what happens when candidates drop out and release their delegates. Particularly in the early states, the third or fourth placed candidates might do well enough to be entitled to an automatic delegate vote. For “regular” delegates, the delegate effectively becomes uncommitted when his/her candidate drops out. If you go with the pooled process, that would cause problems with those votes being locked into candidates no longer running (making a deadlock slightly more likely). On the other hand, if you pledge the automatic delegates, the automatic delegates will tend to volunteer to be pledged to the candidates who dropped out (retaining their independence).
One other recommendation may be problematic. The commission recommended that automatic delegates who have a role in the election process should have to maintain the appearance of neutrality. It’s unclear if this applies to anybody beyond the state chairs who have tended to stay neutral in the primary process. To the extent that it applies to others, DNC members tend to be experienced activists — exactly the type of people whom a presidential candidate would want to be helping the campaign get organized in a state. Excluding these people from getting on board early may hinder the candidate who actually wins the nomination. However, the recommendation is somewhat vague and we will need to see what the RBC does with it.
Aside from the Trump cautionary note, one other caution. Unlike the Republicans, the system that the Democratic party uses to allocate delegates makes it very difficult for a candidate to win a majority of the delegates. In the past two cycles, two candidates have fought it out until the end. If a third candidate stays in for a lengthy period and does not release delegates, the reduction in the number of unpledged delegates may result in no candidate getting to a majority on the first ballot.
The RBC will be spending the first half of the year re-writing the national rules to take into account these recommendations (and any other changes that the RBC members may want to change). It will be interesting to see the final result.
Posted in Delegates, Democratic Party, Superdelegates
Also tagged Rules and By-laws Committee, Unity and Reform Commision
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