Last week\u2019s Alaska Democratic Party caucuses revealed two things: The state\u2019s appreciation for Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, runs deep. Alaska\u2019s Democratic primary is just as deeply broken.<\/p>\n
The Alaska Democratic Party praised the fact that more than 10,600 registered Democrats participated in events Saturday. That was a record – more Alaskans participated in the Democratic Party caucuses than ever before. More than 1,000 of them were in Juneau, where the Sheffield Ballroom was filled with standing participants.<\/p>\n
That record shows the flaccidity of the caucus system. Statewide, according to the Alaska Division of Elections, there are 70,187 registered voters. That\u2019s a turnout of 15.1 percent.<\/p>\n
The Republican presidential primary, held March 1, had a turnout of 17 percent. Two percent might not sound like a lot, but when it comes to picking a president, turnout matters.<\/p>\n
Participating in a caucus, while it might be fun for the motivated and involved, disenfranchises those who don\u2019t have three free hours on a particular Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t have the time, you\u2019re out of luck. If you\u2019re not in town on a particular day, you\u2019re out of luck. If you have to work, you\u2019re out of luck.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re an independent or nonpartisan voter, you\u2019re out of luck.<\/p>\n
Caucuses attract a wealthier, less diverse crowd than a simple poll, according to repeated studies and analyses by political scientists. Their turnout is not representative of Alaska – or any other state.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s presidential primaries are run by party officials, not the state of Alaska, and one can see the qualitative difference between a state-run election and one put on by a party. The state is required by law to ensure access to as many Alaskans as possible. The state\u2019s political parties, and particularly the Democratic Party, could learn something.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, at the national level the Democratic Party nationally uses an undemocratic \u201csuperdelegate\u201d system that ordains individuals with the voting power typically reserved for delegates bound by the results of state primaries.<\/p>\n
This system was implemented after the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention to stabilize the convention proceedings and make them less populist. It was designed specifically to be undemocratic.<\/p>\n
We have heard of superdelegates who say that the results of a state\u2019s election don\u2019t have a bearing on how superdelegates cast their votes. That\u2019s unfortunately true.<\/p>\n
At the national level and at the state level, the Democratic Party should switch to a more representative, more inclusive system for picking its presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
If a president represents the people, the people should have an unambiguous voice in picking him or her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week\u2019s Alaska Democratic Party caucuses revealed two things: The state\u2019s appreciation for Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, runs deep. Alaska\u2019s Democratic primary is just as deeply broken. The Alaska Democratic Party praised the fact that more than 10,600 registered Democrats participated in events Saturday. That was a record – more Alaskans participated in the Democratic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23618"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}