DNC Will Recommend Against Virtual Caucus Plans Due To Security Concerns

It is NOT the Official Trump logo.

It appears at the end of a video a Trump supporter made extolling the Trump presidency, which Trump retweeted.

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Does anyone know how these virtual caucuses would have worked? Were they “app based”, or could landlines be used as well? The fact that they were concerned about “hacking” suggest some kind of app-based approach.

That being said, I think that caucuses serve an important purpose. One of the most important considerations in choosing a candidate is the candidate’s ability to motivate voters. And caucuses are a great way to measure that factor.

I do think that Iowa and NH need to compromise on the “first in the nation” thing, because both states are far less diverse than the party itself. I would suggest that Nevada and Iowa rotate as the first caucus state, and New Hampshire and Delaware rotate as the first election state.

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The Iowa Caucus’ opened the door for Barack Obama. By the nature of the comments of many posting here you have never been to a caucus and do not understand how a caucus works. The caucus is an opportunity for the party to determine who their candidate will be not some random voters who at the last minute randomly pick a candidate without putting ant effort into the process.

Additionally what is your excuse for the low voter turnout in primary states?

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Ah, the elitist argument, that only the special few should select the nominee.

In that case, why bother with Primary Season at all?

The DNC folks can just sit in a smoke-filled room, argue about whether it’s 100% Biden or 98% Biden/ 2% Warren, then tell everyone else what our “choice” is.

Why is someone who can’t afford the time to stand around for hours given no voice in the nominee? It’s bullshit.

By definition (doubly so in Iowa), you’re saying the nominee is being selected by old white folk with no other plans or work to do that day.

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And, had he retweeted a video that ended with a proper Swastika, would that be any different?

Po-Tay-to, po-tah-to

Like your in-person vote can’t be intimidated. Gimme a break.

The DNC has got something right.

  1. Virtual caucusing is obviously vulnerable to hacking. Hacking isn’t just a fly in the ointment. It is an existential threat to democracy.

  2. You can’t argue for paper ballots one day and the next day argue for electronic caucusing.

  3. Caucusing is in any case an affront to democracy and rigs the game in favor of people of means and of leisure. If Iowa really wants to increase citizen participation, it should scrap the caucus and introduce paper ballots.

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Yes. In my mother’s last years, the nursing home she was in would get an absentee ballot for her. She had not been judged incompetent, but she was not in mental condition to cast a vote (especially sad, because she was always deeply interested in politics and social justice). I could have filled out her ballot–and it would have been what she wanted–but I didn’t.

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yes. Because everyone knows what the swastika represents, but most people don’t know the association between that lion logo and White Nationalism.

What is telling is that Trump is seeing so much stuff that is associated with White Nationalism. Where is he getting this information? How come no one seems to be reviewing what he sees before he retweets it?

This kind of stuff is extremely dangerous, IMHO. Trump is essentially directing his fan base to white supremacist web sites…

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My apologies if I got the description of the Iowa caucus wrong, but I did qualify it with an “if I recall correctly”. If I’m mistaken, I for one would appreciate being put straight. However, I did attend a caucus as the representative of my area party, and the chair of the caucus suspended the rules long enough to submit an entire up-or-down slate of candidates, thereby blocking popular individual from getting a shot at their nominations. My first “rubber meets the road” glimpse at the sausage factory.

Yes, Iowa opened the door to Obama. Who’s to say that a regional group consisting of 3 or 4 states wouldn’t have done the same thing? And if they hadn’t, doesn’t that mean that the participants in those states were saying, “This is the direction we believe the country should go”?

As far as participation goes, that’s hard enough in the general election, but I doubt those people are showing up ignorant of the candidates and issues. Not the party elite saying who’s going to run, but the rank-and-file saying, once again, “This is the candidate that I believe represents my values, but I’m willing to work to get the eventual nominee elected because s/he also represents a closer view of my values that the other party.”

Unless you’re a Bernie Bro.

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Yes, vote-by-mail works fine here in WA but we’re still stuck with a caucus in the primaries. It would be far more representative of the electorate if we had a vote-by-mail primary.

Our stupid caucus system in WA allowed rabid Bernie fans to win in the last primary over HRC, and then HRC won the non-binding statewide vote-by-mail primary afterwards. Which proved how flawed the caucus system is, because not enough people can participate. Or they’re too easily shouted down by the most rabid group. Even the R’s in this state moved from caucus to VBM primary years ago.

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Again you obviously have never been to a caucus… attendees are activists, not elitists. However the intent of caucus is for the party to choose its candidate. There is nothing elitist about that process. I personally have attended caucuses since I was a young man, first in Minnesota and later in Iowa. People attending those caucuses have been of every gender, every culture, every religion, every race. The one thing they have in common is they are serious Democrats (and of course on the opposite side they are serious Republicans). If one does not chose to be a serious party member you get to make your more limited chose in the general election. The Democrats are so inclusive in the caucus process that they even let non Democrat Bernie into the process.

Again, if you haven’t participated don’t talk like you know what it is all about and if you don’t want to b e part of the local Democratic Party don’t complain that you don’t get to help pick the candidate that will represent the Democratic Party in the general election.

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Well it seems to me that something unnecessary just got eliminated.

Fine by me. We can caucus in Texas if we want to and mostly we don’t. The only time I’ve ever seen us caucus was '08. We did line up for Hillary and Barrack - for all the difference it made.

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I appreciate your comments and on many points agree but once again, we’re do you get the idea it is the party elite that is picking the candidate not the rank and file? Th e people I see working on their favorite candidate are truck drivers, Farmer, teachers, retired, small business owners, medical personnel, factory workers etc etc. at the caucus there is a process that allows neighbors (at the precinct level) to come together and narrow the field, the the same at the county, district and state level. This seems like a very democratic process.

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Maybe it is. It’s just less democratic than a Primary.

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In 2016, WA had a binding caucus that Bernie won, and a non-binding vote by mail primary that HRC won. These are the numbers who voted and the percentages:

Caucus:
Bernie Sanders 19,159 – 72.72%
Hillary Clinton 7,140 – 27.10%

Primary (vote by mail)
Hillary Clinton 420,461 – 52.38%
Bernie Sanders 382,293 – 47.62%

Tell me why the caucus dominated by far fewer Democratic voters was more important than the total number of registered Democrats who voted in the non-binding primary. This is supposed to be a representative democracy, remember?

Am I less worthy as a Democrat because I don’t want to spend an evening being shouted at by Bernie bots in my extremely liberal small town, and would rather make a decision calmly in my home? Maybe taking a few days to think about it? The simple fact is that the caucus system is not representative of the electorate as a whole. The WA 2016 caucus and primary proves that.

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Funny, I thought the primary was an opportunity “for the party to determine who their candidate will be”. Two “randoms”, oh my. Do you really think people who bother to vote in a primary are going to throw a dart at the ballot? Put that caucus energy into turning out the vote in the primary, because anyone who votes in the primary is almost certainly going to vote in the general, and it is much easier to get people to vote in a primary than it is to get them to commit to a standing up all night contest.

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As a side note, it looks like WA state Democratic Party ditched the caucus for 2020, and delegates will be selected only by the vote-by-mail primary. Lesson learned, I guess.

Exactly so. Why impose another layer over it? It makes no sense to me at all.

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Combination of “we’ve always done it this way” (legacy of party power brokers selecting candidates), and some current party operatives’ income and access to power wrapped up in the caucus process.

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