The Caucus System

Last week, I asked Jake to explain the caucus system to me. He explained the gist of it and told me that he didn’t know the details of how it worked. The one thing he did mention is that once the delegates get into the groups for each candidate and the candidate gets too low a turnout, that group gets dismantled and everyone gets to go to their second choice, and so on. This idea was quite appealing to me so I read up on the process a bit and it works quite similar to the way Jake explained it.

In actuality, the Republican and the Democratic caucuses are different according to the DeMoines Register. The Republicans get to vote one time for one candidate. This makes me sad since the most appealing part of the caucus, to me, is that particular trait. The interesting part of the Democratic caucus is that let’s say you’re rooting for a candidate you really like but isn’t realistically going to win, which we have many of this year, you get to stand in his crowd (since Carol Moseley Braun dropped out, they are all men now) and be heard. Then, since he didn’t get enough votes, you get to go stand in your second favorite candidate’s crowd as well. This means you may get to exercise your right to vote several times, depending on the candidate you chose.

I like the idea of going down your list of choices; it represents a clearer picture of the voters’ preferences. Let’s say there are 3 people running for president in a year when the outgoing president has already served for eight years and can’t get reelected, like it was the case in 2000. (I know there were more than 3 candidates in 2000 but I am trying to simplify for my example’s sake.) Let’s say you like the ideals of Candidate A and you vote for him. About 10% of the voters agree with you so they do the same. This is a substantial number for Candidate A and it may encourage him or her to rerun in a few years. However, it’s not enough to win this election and it’s below 15% so the people who voted for Candidate A, including you, have to now choose another group to join. Let’s say when Candidate A got 10%, Candidate B and Candidate C had received 49% and 41%, respectively. If Candidate A’s crowd didn’t get to revote, Candidate B would be the declared winner. This is the way today’s presidential elections, the Republican caucus, and the primaries work (in my simple understanding), you get to vote once and the candidate with the most votes wins. (Yes, I am aware of the Electoral College and how it all works, but imagine this on a state by state level.)

Now let’s imagine the entire 10% of Candidate A’s crowd decides to vote for Candidate C after their crowd has to disperse. This time, Candidate C is the winner. The results have changed drastically.

The question is which result represents the voters’ preferences better? I prefer the caucus way because I might like Candidate A better than the other two but if he’s no longer an option, I’d much rather have Candidate C in office over Candidate B. If the name of the game is to represent the voters’ preferences, doesn’t the caucus system do that more accurately?