Wonk the (Primary) Vote

OK, I fully admit up front that this is kind of geeky, but the spousal unit and I spent dinner discussing voting procedures to try to make the Democratic primaries more representative and providing more opportunities to more kinds of candidates. What else do two former political science graduate students discuss? And it was really interesting! Well, maybe if you were there it would have been interesting. Anyway, here's a modestly wonky proposal to try to bring some order to the primaries.

First, what are the structural/organizational problems of the current primaries? They are too dissimilar in nature (caucus vs. primary, open vs. closed, multi-stage vs. single vote, etc.). They over represent small states, older voters, and caucuses. They are not equally open to participation. They are decidedly stacked against non-establishment candidates with the Super Tuesday blow out. They tend to clump regionally which distorts perspectives. They tend to clump chronologically which causes rushes of contests followed by long lulls. The lack of order encourages larger, well funded states to shove to the front of the line. Voters in states that vote late in the primary usually (though not this year) have no functional say in who gets chosen.

What are ways to address these various issues in a way that will still result in a fair, transparent, democratic election, giving people enough time to view and judge candidates?

1. Close the contests. Unless you are a registered Democrat, you cannot vote. On this, I am adamant. This is choosing our party's nominee. Republicans can stick to their own sorry group of losers. Independents can shit or get off the pot. You want to pick the Dem candidate? Commit to the party.
2. Allow day of election party registration. But we don't want to suppress turnout, so make it easy to become a Democrat. This one is trickier because of the rules different states have about voter registration. My opinion is get 'em in the door and have them put their name on the dotted line. Then hit them up for donations.
3. Establish electoral blocks of states that are distributed geographically and are created based on their Electoral College weight. There are 538 total Electoral College votes. The smallest indivisible EC voting unit is California, with 55 EC votes. Place Califonia as a voting block on its own, then take the remaining 483 and divide them into eight or nine other blocks. Divided by 8 means blocks of about 60 EC votes (there would be a little variation) while nine voting blocks gives you about 54 C votes per, both comparable to California. The idea is to make each round of voting worth approximately the same in tems of general election outcome as possible. Also, states would need to be allocated to represent different regions to reflect the nation's population divesity and to provide opportunities for different candidates to excel.
4. The electoral blocks rotate their position each presidential election season. First year order is chosen by lot, then the first block from this cycle goes to the end of the line on the next cycle. This prevents permanent campaigns in places like Iowa and gives all states opportunities to set the tone, make the difference, and have a good chance of being heard. It also makes the state parties more important in relation to the national party as it will never be clear which state may be the decider.
5. Elections should be held every other week, starting the second week in January. Though it would be preferable to have all the block vote on the same day, as long as they all voted within the week, that would be sufficient. Even with 10 voting blocks, it would be wrapped up before June 1. Besides, we're seeing the phenomenon that the longer the contest goes on, the more excited people are getting and the higher the turn out. I can see voting blocks contesting with each other to see who can claim bragging rights for the biggest turn out.
6. Now, the big decision here is what to do about the primary vs. caucus and small state vs. big state which diminishes the votes of people who are in big state primaries. Rule one is you must have a single contest. No Texas Two-step or Washington Waffling. The next part will take a bit of explaining:

Allocate delegates on the basis of proportional turn out. This means that a delgate is granted for every 100,000 or 15,000 or 250,000 or whatever the threshold number is no matter what state you are in. No gerrymandered districts with the voter in precint 1 counting for more than those in precinct 4. States that want to hold caucuses can do so, but the low turnouts for caucuses will result in a lower delegate count and thuis voice at the national convention. Want more voice at a national level? GET OUT YOUR VOTE.

This offers a poweful incentive to state parties to get people in the door. Candidates will find it tougher to game a system by suppressing votes or trying to appeal to only their own consitutencies. A small state that has a big Democratic presence and a strong GOTV operation, can increase its influence in the national party in relation to a large state, yet big states are guaranteed of having their larger populations be accurately represented. States that are traditionally Republican are made to get off their asses and pump up their communications efforts or be ignored. Less prominent candidates can make inroads in smaller states because it takes the same number of voters to get a delegate as in a large state, where they may not be able to do the big media buys or get the attention of the more popular candidate. Finally, it behooves a candidate to run strongly in every state, as poor turnout and low votes means fewer delegates even if you win. You can't win except by increasing participation.

States have every incentive to engage in massive get out the vote efforts. They begin to contest with each other for delegate representation based on turn out. And, well, that also means you don't know who gets how many delegates until all the votes are in, the total turn-out is tallied, and the delegates apportioned in accord with that. A candidate then gets the the number of delegates in a given state based on what percentage of that state's vote she garnered.

If state X turns out 2,000,000 voters, and they are apportioned 1 delegate per 25,000 voters, there's 80 delegates. Candidate 1 got 45% of the vote, candidate 2 got 35%, and candidates 3 & 4 each got 10%. The delegates are apportioned 36 to #1, 28 to #2, and 8 each to #3 & #4. State Z who decided to hold a caucus the same day only turned out 250,000 voters, so only gets 10 delegates. Caucus states have to report total number and actual vote counts at the end of the caucus, and delegates are allocated to candidates proportionally. In the case of fractional delegates, overall vote allocation in the voting block will determine who gets to claim the delegate. A candidate who is a bigger vote getter across states will pick up the extra delegates as a reward for being more competitive in more contests.

So, that's how I spent my Friday night dinner. What were you up to?

Anglachel