Official 2020 US Election: Democratic Party Discussion

[Bofferbrauer2]

Shadow1980 said:

tsogud said:

The way that the Democratic primaries are conducted are better than the Republican party to be sure. Primaries need to start being treated as importantly as the general. We need to revamp how and when the primaries are held like having all states vote on the same day and having election day a national holiday, both primary and general election. I'm just suggesting things off the top of my head but I'm sure there's other ways that are better.

It's not the first time I've seen it suggested that the primary should be a single election on one day instead of being a series of contests staggered over a period of 4-5 months. It seems like a good idea to me. Every other election is done on the same day. One argument I've seen in favor of staggered primaries is that it allows candidates to focus on a few states at a time, but if being able to campaign in every state is essential, then wait until summertime to have the election. Have it on, say, the first weekend in July (meaning both days, to give everyone enough time to vote), and then have the convention at the end of the month. That ought to give every candidate enough time to campaign throughout the nation. Ranked-choice voting should be implemented as well, of course.

There's also the issue of caucuses and open vs. closed primaries. Caucuses ought to be done away with entirely (they've become less frequent, with only four states having one this year). As for primaries, it's hard to say if they should be open, closed, or semi-open. The question will always remain "Should non-Democrats be allowed to have a say in who represents the Democratic Party on the ballot?" After all, political parties are private organizations, not a de facto or de jure part of the government, and therefore there's issues regarding things like freedom of associate. FairVote has an article about the subject here. But regardless of the type, primaries should be the rule.

The problem is that primaries are run by state and local governments, though I wonder how much leeway the DNC has to pressure states to have all of their primaries on one day, or to simply operate the primary process themself.

@bolded: Can somebody explain me the difference? We don't have primaries or caucuses here, so I don't know what's what.

As for having them all on the same day, that also seems to be the best course of action to me. The parties don't necessarily need to have theirs all on the same date. So the primaries of the republican, democratic, green, libertairian, etc... don't all have to happen at the same time, but each party would need to have a single day for their own primary election. And yeah, primaries need to have a ranked choice, especially since candidates can drop out at any time.