Washington's Democratic Caucuses Undemocratic

It’s a cool 44 degrees Fahrenheit Saturday morning in Normandy Park, a wooded hamlet on the southwest end of liberal-dominated Seattle. I’m standing in line out front of our local elementary school, feeling a chill more than the Bern. At 9:11 a.m. I receive a text from a campaign volunteer, which essentially stated:

“It’s going to be close, so we need everyone to show up! Doors open at 9am. Do you have a plan to get to the caucus?”

Many of us were already there, standing out in the cold for a good 45 minutes before being allowed to enter the building. At least it wasn’t raining.

I was the first from my precinct to sit at our assigned long “Orange Is The New Black” cafeteria-style table, joined shortly thereafter by another fellow around my age-ish. I’m just a tad over 40. We also had in common this being our first-ever caucus.

Another 10 or so minutes went by. We had been instructed to wait patiently until everyone was seated in their correct precinct location. The room buzzed with caucus-goers socializing and slowly making their way to their precinct tables. Then the announcements started, the warmest from a woman volunteer:

“Thank you all for coming,” she said. “I am so glad to see so many of my liberal neighbors. It’s quite a departure from the conservative loud-mouths I’m used to seeing around this town.”

The full gymnasium erupted into laughter and applause, a group of people united by ideology, despite their presidential candidate choice.

Once instructions were orated, a volunteer man who chairs the organizing committee lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. After “indivisible” he said, “with justice and liberty for all,” during which time the room garbled the last verse. Some said it the way it’s always been said and written. Others changed and followed the leader who transposed two words.

Each table had about 20 people and I’d say our caucus location had about 200-300 people turn out in total. At our table, which is our precinct, one person volunteered to be our coordinator. She took charge of a prepared agenda and read through each item, checking it off as she went along. She told us we have four total delegates and anyone who did not bring in or had forgotten their registration form was able to complete one.

After everyone completed their registration forms, which require the participant to name the candidate of their choosing, the forms were tallied by another participant at our table. We had nine precinct participants vote for one candidate and ten precinct participants vote for the other candidate. So that’s 43% of the vote in favor of one candidate and 57% of the vote in favor of the other candidate. Each candidate received 50% of the delegates.

Wait a minute. So one delegate received more direct votes and they share an equal number of actual delegates? How is that accurate? How is that representative? How is that democratic? The simple answer; it’s not.

After the votes were tallied, our coordinator divided us up by candidate. Participants for one candidate on this side of the table and participants for the other on that side. Then she gave everyone at the table an opportunity to speak on behalf of their candidate to try influencing others to change their vote. Two people spoke for one candidate, including our precinct/table coordinator, and four people spoke for the other. No one changed their vote.

Next came the final delegate count, and the four delegates from our precinct are selected along with four alternates, which can be done by volunteer or nomination. I was nominated to be a delegate, and am required to participate in the Legislative District Caucuses on April 17, 2016. Each delegate received a small, rectangular yellow form where they fill in their identifying information. This small form is then our ticket into the Legislative District Caucuses, where we have an opportunity to further influence delegate votes in favor of one candidate or the other.

This is followed by our County Conventions on May 1, 2016, followed by Congressional District Caucuses on May 21, 2016, followed by the State Convention in Tacoma on June 18, 2016 and finally followed by the National Convention in Philadelphia from July 25-28, 2016. During each of these events delegates can influence other delegates.

We want to believe every vote counts, and that our presence matters. Clearly throughout the caucus process every vote does not count. If anything I’m feeling the disenfranchisement.