Here in Washington State we have one of the oddest hybrid presidential elections in the country. It is a caucus or a primary? both? Why doesn't the State tell people that the $10 million dollar primary on February 19th doesn't count for the Dems and only counts for half of the Rep delegates?
We are already receiving our ballots for the February 19th Presidential primary but it is only a symbolic vote for the Dems and the only way you can actually influence who will win in the state is to attend an hours and hours long caucus 10 days before that on February 9th. The Republicans aren't much better as they will use it to elect 19 of their 4o delegates to the GOP National Convention at a total cost of over half a million per delegate.
As someone who has attended the caucuses for the past 4 presidential primaries I can't think of anything that discourages people from participating more in politics then having to sit through a bunch of single issue supporters with some plank for the department of peace or free abortions on demand for the party plank droning on for half an hour before we were allowed to vote on the presidential candidates.
In 2000 there were over 43% of all eligible voters participated but only 3% participated in the cacuses. The parties also refused to count the unaffiliated ballots so the 1/3 of independent voters were excluded from the process..
The dem caucus process is mind numbing long. It is a four page pdf document. Feb 9th at 600 locations you elect the first round of 33,000 delegates. In April they are additional conventions in which 2,000 delegates and 1,000 alternates are elected to the congressional convention, In May those people elect 51 delegates who will serve as the elections board who will attend the National convention.
but wait there is more.. In June at the State convention ( a total waste of time unless you are a political junkie). the elections board suddenly elects another 29 delegates. This is always pretty much an inside job since by then you know who your candidate is going to be and it is just a reward for party faithful. By this point you also add in 17 super delegates who get to go because of their party position. Hmmm no independents I am guessing by this point.
over 1/3 of the electorate in Washington are independents.. We don't have time to spend three long weekends listening to people tell us why we should vote for them and we don't have the dem background to make it through the process..
The state party is trying to pump up a dying system and it serves to drive people out of participating and wonder if one person's voice really matters.
What if instead of wasting all of that time electing people who aren't going to speak for us we instead spent the first weekend using 100,000 people to do community service? or perhaps at the second level instead of wasting another entire day for 33,000 people having them spend the day registering voters?
I wish that parties weren't so worried about defending a dying system that they actually listened to the people in the state. I wish that the guys who run the local district meetings were regular people with real jobs and not political science majors. I wish the state told people that votign in the primary is only symbolic for Dems and only counts for half in the Republicans. I wish that you could have a voice if you are an independent. I wish my vote mattered in Washington.