Legal Commentary

Final Report on Injustices in 2008 State Caucuses vs. Primaries

By Jeralyn

In May, I published Peniel Cronin's ground-breaking research report on the injustices in the 2008 state caucuses. The original report is here, the June revised report is here. ( Posts on the follow-ups and revisions here.)

Ms. Cronin has just released her final report. The data charts for the report are here. The report contains new information and data as well as a rewritten Conclusion and a call for caucus reform.

Ms. Cronin stresses that the report is not about Obama-bashing. It is clearly about the flaws of the caucus as a voting system, as distinguished from its value as a forum of debate and discussion. Here's an excerpt from her conclusion: [More...]

In 1865, Swiss political scientist Ernest Naville gave this simple description of representative democracy: “The right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all.”

In the United States one of the most cherished promises of our constitutional republic is that through our votes we can raise our voices, express our needs and achieve representative government. To this end the more inclusive and accurate a voting system is, the more fully “we the people” – all of us – can participate in choosing our elected officials.

However, when the voices of voters are excluded from the process then those citizens are robbed of their right to representation. Their voices are muted, their needs go unexpressed and the resultant election becomes skewed by not capturing a wide swath of voter preference. In essence, this en masse disenfranchisement strikes at the very heart of our democracy taking it instead towards a government ruled by the few, by the insiders.

From this author’s view, this is perhaps the greatest failing of the caucus system, ie, it breaks the sacred promise of achieving truly representative government through our votes.

While caucuses are exemplary as a forum of debate and discussion they are highly flawed as a voting system. They filter-out and lock-out multiple voter groups, they lack the structure, control and objective monitors within the caucusing process which would prevent the irregularities and outright fraud and in the end they fail to produce reliable and certified results. And, even when they do produce an exact vote count who is measured through that exact count? When so many are excluded how can we pretend that the results are democratic – a true barometer of the full voice of the people, ie, a broad measurement of the will of the people?

Pease check out Ms. Cronin's important and groundbreaking work on this topic. Background on Ms. Cronin is contained at the end of my first post on the report. Many thanks to Ms. Cronin for allowing TalkLeft to be the first to publish her reports.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 16, 2008 (boomark / email).