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I made a few statements in another post in which I called for the party to abandoned the caucus system...
I still feel that way and in fact, more so now...
However, I learned that I was wrong about the Washington delegation and I apologize for not going to the Washington State Party site to learn all the steps it takes in order to participate in a caucus...
First you have to go to a gathering at the precinct level in order to elect a delegate to the represent that precinct at the legislative level...
The party claims that more than 244,000 people showed up at these caucuses...
But since they are party run events, there is no outside sanction as there is in a primary...
But I give them the benefit of the doubt...
The legislative level is the second step where the people who were elected at the precinct level then elect someone to represent the legislative district at the congressional level which actually takes you to the fifth part, which is the state convention...
Of course the third and fourth parts are County elections by the elected delegates from the Congressional caucus which may or may not be part of the the county delegation. This is where the state platform comes into play...
The fifth part is the state convention where the delegates to the national convention are actually elected...
Now to me, this is a whole lot of stuff and demands a very large commitment on the part of people who wish to be invovled...
And although that 244k sound like a lot of folks, it is about 7.6% of the registered voters in the state...
Since Washington does not really stress party politics, it is hard to discover how many of the 3.2 million registered voters in Washington State are actually democrats...
Even if it broke 33 percent for each party and 34 percent for independents, it would still be about 22% of voters...
Still, my objections to the caucus process remain...
Fewer people participate...
It is set for a fixed date at a fixed time so that people with schedule conflicts have no alternative such as Absentee Balloting which is available when the state runs the show...
The process is complicated and is a party event, controlled by the party not the Secretary of State...
There are limited gathering places to conduct the caucus, they are not at the regular polling place...
As I said before, this year is history...
Changes should be made for the future...
We should, as democrats, welcome all the people who want to vote in the selection of the party nominee for president...
Not just those who have the means and the time to spend on that extra effort required to participate in a caucus...
And let me reiterate, there should be no more of these so-called super delegates come 2012...
If they want to be a delegate, let them run to represent a district as an elected delegate...
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