ProudProgressive

I don’t like caucuses. I haven’t yet attended one, but my animosity stems not from the specifics of what transpires in the meetings, but from the overall approach. If we were to design a system with the express intention of discouraging as many people as possible from participating in the democratic process, we’d be hard pressed to derive a better product than caucuses.

The problem is simple: caucuses require voters to turn up in person for a meeting that starts at a designated time, but that has no specific end time. In Colorado, the caucuses start at 7 PM and last until… who knows? This system makes participation difficult, if not impossible for people who don’t work regular nine to five jobs — someone has to keep those 24-hour stores, gas stations, pharmacies, and hospitals open. Even for people with regular working hours, few have the time or energy to spend hours at an evening meeting with no guaranteed end time after working or taking care of children all day. And on a parental note, how are parents of young children supposed to manage? In my case, with a 4 ½ year old who needs to wake up for school the next morning and an 8-month old breast-feeding baby, it’s highly doubtful that both Sonja and I will be able to attend our caucus.

Thus, I don’t think it’s a stretch to call the caucus system discriminatory. Even if that’s not the explicit intention, the result is disenfranchisement of a large segment of the population. And the worst part is that it’s totally unnecessary: If states across the country from California to New Hampshire can use a direct vote to determine their preferred candidates, why can’t Colorado, Iowa, and the other holdouts?

Tags: Caucus, Caucuses, Colorado, Disenfranchisement, Election 2008, Presedential Primaries