2012: Should people be able to vote at any time of day to choose the Democratic nominee?

Should we continue having primaries in half the states where people can vote at any time of day, and caucuses in half the state where everyone in an area is told to show up at 6PM, for example?

NT

Consistency in voter selection method is not in and of itself a desirable quality in my opinion. We should instead focus on what requirements we should have, and then determine if the various methods satisfy those requirements. If secret ballot is a requirement, that throws out the traditional caucus method. If some sort of minimum duration is required, that would also throw out the caucus format. But there are other ways to satisfy the requirements...

...and they say that everyone has to show up at 6PM and you're busy then, you should be unable to vote?

...without telling everyone who wants to vote for who the Democratic nominee for president is have to face a traffic nightmare, since everyone is told to show up at 6PM.

Everybody mocks Texas' joint primary and caucus system but I think that's really a good way to go. You get the advantage of having a more representative primary as well as the caucus for the purposes of party building. I would just give less delegates to the caucuses.

selecting delegates to go to the convention. The process is about selecting delegates to represent the state at the convention. In reality, all the contenders should be allowed to go all the way to the convention with their delegates and create the Party's Platform for the election season. This way the nominee who is selected brings the most democratic ideals of the party and the people with them on to the White House. So, in this year's election, for example, John Edwards would have stayed in and continued pushing his platform regarding poverty. He may not have enough delegates to win the election, but he could say to, say Obama, that he will allow his delegates to win if Obama adopts his Poverty initiative and uses it... essentially, he got that this year because two wouldn't quit and Edwards was important in the process.. normally a candidate's suspension wouldn't mean quite as much as it did during this year's process.

The thing is the primary is much too long. Bush has been so bad that for 2 yrs we've been in this process of trying to find a succesor who would give our country back and restore law and dignity. No matter who is the Dem nominee, the Dems are going to win. This is why the Dems can take the chance on a Historic candidate. Clinton represents too much of the old system; Obama is new and shiney. Its the reason people are choosing Obama. They don't want same ole' same ole'... they want real change.

business or right to change it.

I found I rather liked the process too. The best part about it was if your candidate didn't meet threshold you got to make another choice. And people who voted again were able to talk to their neighbors to get their input on it. As long as supporters of frontrunning candidates don't get too obnoxious, it works out pretty well. A similar thing could be done with an instant runoff ballot (where you got to rank all the candidates by preference) in primaries.

the Clinton supporters. But it was only the Clinton supporters who spoke up. We listened respectfully, even when they said stuff like "men have screwed the world up so a woman should be in charge."

Anyway, it was a great experience. We got to discuss the state party platform and vote on it and even offer amendments to it. We got to see what volunteer opportunities there were for either the state convention or for the GE. And we got committments from lots of people to be election day judges or delegates to either the state or national convention.

NT

Because you fail to properly define "Caucus" and "Primary"

Caucuses are run by the party. Primaries are run buy the state.

You apparently take issue with some of the rules applied to certain caucuses. These would eb similar to the Iowa caucuses, however, not all caucuses are run in this manner.

The New Mexico caucus, for example, used voting machines.

I wish at least DUers would understand the terminology before they disparage a system. Many state aprties have no choice but to run a caucus because the state run primaries occur less than six weeks prior to the general election and thus cannot be counted for the national conventions that occur prior to that date.

...they shouldn't create a traffic nightmare by telling everyone to show up at the same time.

People should be able to vote from at least 7AM-7PM whether it's a party or the state running the election.

but your opinion has no impact whatsoever on how other state parties conduct the nomination process, nor should it.

but the state legislature, run by Republicans, didn't wanna pony up the $5 or 10 million it would cost to have a primary.

There wasn't anything wrong with it in prior years and the only differences this year are

a) Michigan and Florida decided not to follow the rules and then decided to proceed with the primaries knowing they wouldn't count

AND

b) If Hillary loses she immediately goes on the warpath saying that someone cheated, that it wasn't fair and that she is obviously the winner no matter what the vote count says

If you ignore Hillary, who has gone insane and get Michigan and Florida to follow the rules it all works fine.

...after the MN caucus.

If the polls had been open all day (instead of everyone in MN voting at the same time) then the traffic wouldn't have been bad.

Grasping at straws, are we? You have to drive in bad traffic one night every four years huh? Is that so?

It is an exlcusionary process. Caucuses can be used separately for local organization, but the primaries should be the way candidates are chosen. Obama has won more primaries anyway. This isn't an argument that caucuses have screwed Hillary.

With carpooling? Public transit?

DIEBOLD UBER ALLES !!11111 SIEG HILL !!!!1!!!1!1

...on hand-counted paper-ballots.

They should let us do so all day instead of telling everyone to show up at 6PM.

If the people in the states like the caucus system they can continue to use it. If they want a primary they can use that. I beleive the citizens of the state should decide.

Because Barack Obama will be running for his second term unopposed.

Iowa should always be a caucus. For a variety of reasons, Obama voters showed up to caucuses in greater numbers than hillary voters, and he was able to win dominating 2 to 1 victories in states where he would've won by less in a primary.

Since the GE is not a caucus, and since some caucuses don't release or calculate total votes for each candidate, I'd prefer about 45 primaries and 5 or less caucuses, including Iowa.

Fuck Hillary's ridiculous popular vote diatribe. I want party building to occur.

But since this is a leading question and you have already decided our fates, why should we have to vote on a specific day between certain hours?


Were I to get my way, we would have an across the board 3 part system, Borrowing some from Column A and some from Column D. 1/3 of the delegate selection based on a district by district Mail In Ballot(closed primary, Democrats only), 1/3 of the delegate selection based on a state by state Mail Ballot(semi-open primary, Democrats and Independents only), and 1/3 of delegates chosen by Caucus(back to closed, Democrats only).

Just curious.... eliminate primary delegates and electoral college & just go according to popular vote?

...every state had voting open from at least 7AM-7PM.

I don't really care. I think it should be decided by states.

I know that Minnesota has a bill going through the house to change our caucus to a primary.

The state party should decide, but I think we do it right in Oregon.