Washblog

Will Washington State's legislative Caucus in a post March 4th world produce harmony or strife?

With Texas and Ohio producing no clear nominee, the democratic party here in Washington is headed for a train wreck unless unified direction is given to counties and legislative caucus credentials committees across our state.

This need might have been minimized had one candidate or the other been established as the presumptive nominee in yesterday's primaries. Now, I have a prefrence but am trying to stay above the frey. In fact, I have known about this potential problem for some time but held out hope that events would eliminate the climate we now are faced with as we look toward our legislative and county caucus conventions.  

With the fight for every delegate now expected to continue through the time of our next level of caucuses the state party must remedy the situation or risk differing rulings and outcomes across our state and ultimately litigation and harm to the party itself.  

The issue involves affidavit voters at our precinct caucuses. This year, the ability to have your vote count at the caucuses for deployed military and those immobile for medical reasons was expanded through use of an affidavit. This process was developed within the party but along the way errors were made when deadlines for sending out the forms collided with final adjustments by the state party involving the date by which these affidavits had to be returned and where they had to be sent. In the end, voters in good faith, followed differing instructions, some complying with an earlier date and some with a later date, while some returned the forms to the state party and others returned them to their county party.

As a result of this chain of events a significant percentage of these affidavit votes are subject to credentials challenge by supporters of one candidate or another at the next caucus level. Some within the Clinton campaign have already indicated an intent to file credentials challenges to some of these affidavit votes. The party makes the names of caucus voters and their preference available to both of the candidates campaigns.

So with the race so close, how would either campaign use this information to their advantage? Without a top down credentials ruling from the state party, the system is ripe for exploitation. Supporters for either candidate could cherry pick and challenge affidavit votes for the opponent seeking to have them disqualified and thus changing the delegate allocation in a given precinct. The supporters of the opposing candidate could then be expected to counter in kind since failing to do so would cause the tactic to succeed. One end result is that well intentioned voters would be disenfranchised. But the fights that would break out across our state while credential committees rule in differing ways (as a result of no clear direction from the state party) is what would cause lasting harm. Action can and must be taken now to avoid this breakdown.

Finger pointing won't keep this train on the track. Who was at fault should be set aside and the state party should focus in on the voters involved who until proven otherwise, can only be assumed to have cast their affidavit votes in good will. Clear bench marks must be established by the party and communicated to every credentials committee across this state before it is too late and the campaigns must be implored to accept all of these ballots unless they, for instance were not received by the state or county until after the latest due date published.

I really believe that the tone of our next level caucuses is at stake along with the integrity of the caucus system. This year should yield an interesting and positive experience for continuing caucus delegates. After all, we have two great presidential candidates, one of whom will be the next president.

This year the primary and caucus season is like an extended world series to a political junkie like myself. As baseball, it's fun to watch. As wrestling, not so much.

So let's avoid the train wreck.
What do you say?

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PM,


Are you suggesting that, with an almost three to one margin of caucus delegates at the precinct level for Obama over Clinton that there might be a mass exodus of support for Obama at the LD level enough to put the outcome there in jeopardy? Are there enough affidavits out there to alter a three to one advantage?


2nd, I'm not sure I accept your premise that yesterday's results did anything other than reinforce Obama's lead of pledged delegates (which, the last I heard, actually elect the eventual nominee)


Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue

by The Left Shue on Wed Mar 05, 2008 at 12:34:20 PM PST

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  • Left Shue by Particle Man, 03/05/2008 01:22:04 PM PST (none / 0)
  • no by wrog, 03/06/2008 12:43:51 AM PST (none / 0)
  Particle's concerns are well grounded. The precedent for legal action was let out of the bag in 2000 and 2004. The possibilities for serious and divisive actions are growing every day. Probably not so much here in Whitman County where we had no affidavits and all of 12 delegates to the 5th CD and the State Convention.
  WSDCC needs to take action to clarify the rules, and the direction from the Executive Committee should be broad in the cause of greater access and openness.  
  If this melts down on the national scale, we should still remain honorable and above the fray. From our standpoint, this issue is a simple matter of the WSDCC Executive Committee issuing a declaration along the lines suggested by PM.
 

Dave Gibney Pullman

by gibney on Wed Mar 05, 2008 at 10:33:34 PM PST

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I assume that the challenge to affidavits would be based on the reason for submission -- religious practice, military, disability -- rather than residence in the specified precinct.  After all, the latter is easily checked by referring to the voterfile.

It's all well and good to try to codify rules on their acceptance, but if our experience in the 43rd LD is any guide, it won't make a bit of difference in the results.  In this LD, which must have one of the higher counts of potential affidavit-submitters of any jurisdiction in the state (since we're extremely Democratic, have very high turnout, and a large number of Jewish voters), the organization received precisely FIVE affidavits.  That's five caucus"goers" out of 20,090 ... two one-hundredths of one percent of our attendees.

I can't speak directly for any of the others we handled, but the one affidavit that happened to come from my precinct made absolutely no difference in the outcome.  The submitter was just one of the 130 Obama supporters out of the 163 caucus participants.  The outcome would have been 8-2 with or without the affidavit.

Was the affidavit submitted for a legitimate reason?  I have no idea whatsoever.  The submitter's last name "sounded" Jewish, but there was no confirmation sought.

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever -- Larry Andersen
Blogging at Peace Tree Farm

by N in Seattle on Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 09:28:45 AM PST

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  • N by Particle Man, 03/06/2008 11:07:07 AM PST (none / 0)
    • ah, OK by N in Seattle, 03/06/2008 11:45:48 AM PST (none / 0)
I do not hold that the sky will fall if the party does nothing here.
What I do know is that a wave of new people are getting involved and this is a great thing to cheer about in the short run. If we provide a positive experience, where it is easy to do so, then for very little energy, we will have a larger active party leading up to this years state and local elections. It just makes sense for the party to be good stewards by avoiding conflict whenever conflict can be avoided.

by Particle Man on Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 12:21:38 PM PST

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complex.

the more rules, the procedures,

the more stuff goes wrong.

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

by rmdSeaBos on Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 04:54:44 PM PST

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Some within the Clinton campaign have already indicated an intent to file credentials challenges to some of these affidavit votes.

Further downstream, you speak of the Clinton campaign cherry-picking the affidavits.

Of course, if they did this, it would not go unnoticed.

PM, what do you think the odds are that they'll follow through with these cherry-picked challenges?

by DWE on Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 05:01:11 PM PST

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