The scandal of the caucus

Here's a quiz question. Mitt Romney won 25 delegates in the winner-takes-all state of Montana on Super Tuesday. How many votes did he get?

I'll help you by giving you a clue. In order to win 26 delegates from Arkansas yesterday, Mike Huckabee needed 120,776 voters.

Give up?

The answer is 625 votes. That wasn't Romney's winning margin incidentally. It was the total number of votes cast for the candidate.

Ron Paul came second with 400 votes, John McCain scored 358 and Mike Huckabee 245. The total number of voters was thus 1,628 in a state with approximately 740,000 people of voting age.

I don't want to single out Montana or Romney. In Alaska Barack Obama won 9 delegates with the support of a grand total of 302 people. He required 51, 124 to win the same number of delegates from Delaware.

What is going on?

By putting together so many state elections so early, many local parties were not ready to have their main state primaries on the same day. But they didn't want the cost of holding two primaries. Thus the caucus has had a revival.

It is, however, ludicrously undemocratic.

It's not as if the use of caucuses leaves the result pretty much the same, with any distortions simply being a reason for one state to be cross with another. No. The use of caucuses made a big impact on the distribution of delegates on super Tuesday.

Romney, Huckabee and Obama all gained delegates as a result of this system that they otherwise might not have won. Caucuses (and state conventions) clearly favour the choice and enthusiasm of activists over those of ordinary voters.

As Christopher Hitchens put it, in his marvellous polemic against the Iowa caucus:

In a genuine democratic process, these Tammany tactics would long ago have been declared illegal. But this is not a democratic process, and besides, as my old friend Michael Kinsley used to say about Washington, the scandal is never about what's illegal. It's about what's legal.

There was so much fuss about what happened in Florida in 2000. But whatever your view of that, isn't this at least as bad?

Now it has to be said, that a British person like me writing this is pretty rich. We don't have anything remotely as open as the primary system.

But I do respectfully suggest to my American friends that it is time for the caucus system to go.

Comments

[Marcus Cotswell]

It's not as bad as what happened in Florida. How the parties choose their nominees is their business. How the country chooses its President has to be above reproach.

As it happens, I think the selection process for a Parliamentary seat in this country is pretty good!

[Chris]

Surprise! What do you expect.
Few really believe that the USA is actually a democracy. It is all about money, pressure groups and legal trickery.

[Mack Hall]

The vote-a-matic worked well for decades, as long as Democrats were winning. When Floridians got uppity and rebelled against their Democratic masters, their masters declared the machines flawed and the people stupid.

I propose a large, simple ballot in large, clear print, marked by hand and graded by a party of clear-headed non-radical citizens.

[Roanna]

The process is still very much rooted in its 18th and 19th Century origins and now has the extra layer of tradition and nostalgia weighing it down. Iowa (as an example) has become accustomed to how and when it votes, even if no one in Iowa remembers or knows why. As a whole, the American voting system was created specifically to protect against the 'tyranny of the majority' (sometimes it works, sometimes - like now - it doesn't). It's a fine idea, but the mechanisms for doing so are rusty and really showing their age. I'd argue that the caucus is a prime example of that. How to change it? At this point, I'm not sure it's possible.

[michelline]

--When Floridians got uppity and rebelled against their Democratic masters, their masters declared the machines flawed and the people stupid.--

Well, that's an interesting take on the 2000 debacle that left me (as a Democratic Floridian) disenchfranchised.

Anyway, in response to the actual post, I definitely agree that the Caucus system needs to go. A political caucus is the secular equivalent of a Religious Revival. Only the fanatics attend.

[Jim Sutton]

I don't know where the 302 figure came from for Alaska. Obama got more that that in Juneau alone. Over 1200 Democrats voted in Juneau and over 4,000 on Anchorage. I don't know how many voted in the rest of the state, but I do know that Obama got 76% of the total votes.

[Tyler]

Hate to break it to you, but you're citing some very wrong numbers.

You are quoting the number of state electors, or delegates, awarded to each candidate. These are the people (chosen by and representing those who participated in the caucuses) who will go to the state's convention and actually vote for the candidate. Montana is sparsely populated, but not THAT sparsely populated.

Sure, the caucus system favors the most ardent of supporters, but it's not as if that should really make a difference: if one candidate has a larger number of enthusiastic activists, they should win whether an actual vote is held, or simply a caucus is gathered.

[Drei]

Ever heard of the electoral college? Or how about you take a gander at a map of American congressional districts? The reason they look so funny is due to years of gerrymandering. Democracy in America isn't a joke, but when you add it all up, it's easily influenceable.

[California Sam]

our 'Caucus/Primary system' is 'Bollocks' and most Americans don't even understand the process enough to show up, until November. See ya then:)

[California Sam]

I have the answer.........Blanket Primary!

[Dave B]

For me, one of the Conservatives more encouraging innovations in recent years has been the selection of parliamentary candidates by open primaries, as I understand it they use a caucus system.

Are you suggesting that the Conservatives use of caucuses should be discontinued?

[T. J. Cassidy]

Tyler,

The Electoral College was hijacked over a century ago by the Big Two parties playing the "winner-take-all" game, wherein they try to win a state's whole bloc of electors by winning 50.1% of that state's popular vote. That's what made the Florida Recount of 2000 the big issue it became - all 25 Florida electors were on the line simply because of a recount in one voting district.

Both the Dems and the GOP play it for all it's worth, which is why the Dems never called for electoral reform. But it's astounding the media, especially the Miami Herald, never called for it.

[Tony Francis]

It has to do with the Federalist concept. Votes are weighted so that the states with smaller populations have relatvely greater influence. As an example, every state has two senators in the Senate. If we went by popular vote, just a few states would determine every national election. Ten percent of the US population lives in California. The vote in California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois would determine everything. Specifically, voter fraud in say, Chicago or Detroit could determine every national election. The electoral college, with all its flaws, guards against this. Concerning primaries, an old Democrat lawyer told me: "Primaries are attended by radicals. They usually pick unelectable candidates. Those old smoke filled rooms were better, because those guys knew who could get elected, and who couldn't."

[doug in Colorado]

By the way, when we pledge allegiance, which some of us still do, we don't pledge allegiance to the Democracy...we pledge allegiance to the Republic...the Founding fathers understood human nature well enough to know that pure democracy could be driven by the whim of the mob and the tyranny of the majority to the great disadvantage of the minority...see, Blacks, Indians, and so forth. No means of governance is perfect, but the republic is intended to prevent the fickle mob from doing something foolish in haste, and it's done fairly well. When we've done foolish things, we've done them slowly, at least.

Now and then folks decide we really ought to do away with the electoral college and make it all just a big popularity contest...very bad idea. We would all be ruled by the standards of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles...not an encouraging prospect for those of us who don't happen to like more taxes, higher crime, and more corruption, loss of individual rights and freedoms, etc.

It's particularly rich that you britishers are finding fault with our system when you don't seem to even have a constitution, from our perspective...you devolve parliaments and essentially close the house of Lords, on what seems to be the whim of the temporarily ruling party, and cancel rights to self defence and hunting and other such things, again on what seems to us to be a whim. Fundamental rights that served as good examples to us, like posession of firearms and being able to defend our own lives with them, you throw away.

And your Prime minister...how exactly do you elect him...not by popular vote, if I understand it.

[Mike in NY]

As screwed up as the primary system may or may not be, it is a lot more Democratic than anything in any of the Westminster countries. Ultimately, it's up to each party to decide how transparent it wants to be and for the public to approve or not on election day. As for the Electoral College - dismantle it and I will guarantee Civil War II within 30 years - it might make for a less perfect democracy, but it makes for a stronger republic.