Comments

1
If it were a three-way race, Trump would be beating both of 'em.

Nice job having a terrible party system Democrats.
2
And this matters because? I didn't waste my stamp.
3
This matters because it's a voting method that is endlessly more democratic and fair than asking people to give up hours of a day to go publicly exhibit their election preference and endure our own very special brand of process bullshit. If you're for caucuses, you're an elitist. Good evening.
4
It would matter if it mattered but it doesn't matter so it doesn't
5
What a confusing mess; people already gave up half their day for Bernie to win. Now you get another vote and Clinton wins?

What a mess; makes you wish our method of voting in presidents was a little more modern and less ridiculous

6
It's a popularity poll, not a democratic vote. It has no bearing on the outcome. The value of the ballot is only the paper it's printed on. Oh, yes, the stamp, if you choose to pay some 40 cents to participate.
7
Hillary lost. Get over it.
8
@7 Lost the WA caucus, yes.

She'll just have to console herself with the presidential nomination.
9
It would be only ridiculous if this pointless primary didn't cost a bunch of money. I don't waste a stamp.
10
I guess the super delegates now have cover to back Clinton, may not mean anything but 430,000 more vote in the primary, so much for the will of the people argument.
11
this primary is a fucking joke for democrats and even the stranger wrote about that earlier today. I'm honestly appalled real life grown ups are trying to use it to highlight anything other than how goddamn retarded the primary systems are here specifically and nationwide in general.

i get it, everyone is going insane because Donald trump looms on the horizon, but fucking PERSPECTIVE, people. nothing's getting unified if this is the intellectual scrutiny we're applying to our arguments henceforth
12
"lost the primary"

Because it's not a Democratic primary, for fuck's sake.

Such bizarre smugness over a process that I would think persons from Slog understand better.
13
@11: "I'm honestly appalled real life grown ups are trying to use it to highlight anything other than how goddamn retarded the primary systems are here specifically and nationwide in general. "

Seriously, throwing away the opportunity for reform to get in a bunch of cheap shots. And we'll be forced into a worthless process again next time, and the time after that, all because WA Republicans are afraid of who butters their bread (crazies, theocrats, and dominionists. And guess what, now Trump voters!)
14
@5: It was plenty more than a half-day. A full 8 hours for the first, some people were stuck in theirs until the early morning. The next caucus wasn't much better, I didn't care to move up any further.
15
I actually worked one of the BDOVs today.

Everyone coming up to me: wait I'm confused didn't we democrats already have a primary? What's this for?

The slog: THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE OF WASHINGTON HAVE SPOKEN, EAT SHIT ""BERNIE BROS""
16
The democratic primary is the kind of vote that only matters when you want it to matter.
17
who remembers who won the republican caucus? I don't. Not because it was severely undemocatic (it is) or depressingly folksy (it is) , but because
it
didn't
matter
18
Why would people who already won the caucus, which actually counts, bother voting for Bernie again in the Democratic primary. If the Democratic primary has any statistical validity, then maybe the Republicans are right about global warming.
19
@18: I did because I knew this bullshit would happen regardless, but I'm a completist. I certainly don't expect anyone else to bother.
20
As if anyone in Washington needed more proof that caucuses are a terrible system, in excess of 660,000 people willingly participated in a meaningless vote, but only 230,000 people were able to attend the caucuses.
21
@18 - Your "why would people do this..." argument falls flat given that the meaningless primary has many times more participants than the meaningful caucus. Same thing happened in Nebraska. I don't think it's fair to say that "Hillary should have won" since we don't know how people would have voted had it been meaningful. However, I think we can say that a) caucuses seriously depress turnout among groups that support Clinton, and that b) had the caucus states all held primaries instead, many of Bernie's lopsided victories would have been smaller, meaning that Hillary would be even farther ahead in pledged delegates.
22
@21 This.
23
Pure nonsense. In 2008, the Stranger actually advised people to throw away their primary ballots because the democratic primary is meaningless. And now suddenly Dan Savage wants to pretend it's an accurate reflection of public sentiment? No wonder he supports Clinton: he shares her total absence of integrity.

Dan, you should stop posing as a progressive--- not when you torture the truth in support of a vicious, racist monster who cheered on the mass-murder of Palestinian children in 2014.
24
I support a primary over a caucus, but ... I had to work during the caucus, so I printed out the required form and sent it in. I'm not sure where this notion that anyone's being shut out of the process comes from. Hell, the form didn't even require me to specify whaty reason for unavailability was.

Now, I had to do that significantly before the caucus date, and I only knew that because I'm lucky enough to have politically motivated Facebook friends posting links; for that reason, I would prefer a primary, where we can all go, "Ah, fuck, I forgot to vote!" on Tuesday morning because we have lives outside of public policy. But the degree of difference between the processes, as far as inconvenience is concerned, while real, is small.
25
What I find perplexing are the knots that Sanders folks tie themselves into to prove that Sanders has more support than the lamestream media says.

Big turnouts for rallies! Crushing the caucuses! Rap videos! See? Sanders is popular!

But they can't be bothered to spend a stamp, and send a message to the entire country of his overwhelming support?

I voted for Hillary. Knowing it was meaningless. But wanting to send a message to the entire country. I honestly thought that Sanders would take the state. It may end up closer than these early results show but he isn't going to "win" it.

And lookee here. My decision to engage in the political process paid off.

How many Sanders supporters threw away their ballots? We'll never know. But for the Sanders supporters, it is thousands and thousands, with no proof to back it up. There is always some reason the facts in front of them aren't real facts.

Hillary wins delegates? It's rigged! Hillary wins the popular vote? Never mentioned! Repeating Republican talking points slandering Hillary and doing their work for them? Doesn't matter, HIllary is the devil!

It's like dealing with a blob of mercury. Touch it and it skitters away. No matter what one says, it maintains its toxic impenetrability to forces from the outside. Like facts.
26
It's good to know that according to pundits, people who participated in democracy by spending a Saturday at a caucus, counts for zero votes. Yet, a vote, which counted for no delegates was truly the important part of the process.
27
@26 - if the primary had been a meaningful one, it would be getting a lot more attention. But it's not. There's a reason our primary results were not even highlighted on the NYT website (that I could see), and it's not because the NYT news editors are in the tank for Bernie.
28
(@25 I mean)
29
@24 the difference isn't small. To be able to vote in caucus through a surrogate, you had to file the form a full week in the advance and the only reasons you are allowed to use a surrogate are work, religion, or disability/illness. Single parent and not able to get someone to watch your child, sorry that's too bad. Oh you were called into work at the last minute or your work schedule wasn't posted yet, that's too bad. Oh life happened and you aren't able to spend an unknown amount of time, that's too bad.

The difference and inconvenience isn't small. It's large and prohibits many voters from participating in the process.
30
@ 25, Great gloating and I hate to repeat myself, but we were told correctly for months that this primary was meaningless, a waste of tax dollars, and that we shouldn't bother voting, so (shock) a lot of well-informed people didn't, which obviously skewed the results. I did, but I'm a compulsive voter. That people are now spinning this as a Clinton win is purely dishonest and intentionally deceptive--just like her campaign.
31
@21: "I think we can say that a) caucuses seriously depress turnout among groups that support Clinton, and that b) had the caucus states all held primaries instead, many of Bernie's lopsided victories would have been smaller, meaning that Hillary would be even farther ahead in pledged delegates."

You can say it, but it'd be a worthless guess.
32
@25: Are you seriously this dense?
33
While you are all busy fighting for King's Landing the White Walkers are amassing in the North.
34
@24, I agree that there can be extenuating circumstances, but if your work is on-call, or you're a single parent whose child can't manage in a crowd (I think caucuses should - I admit I've no idea if they do - allow single parents to bring children, if they have to), then you can, for all intents and purposes, file that conflict under whatever category comes closest and file in advance; after all, no one is even looking for proof that your conflict is legitimate. It's like a primary with a less clear "send by" date.

Obviously a primary would be better, and would better serve those with the aformentioned contingencies. But you could say the same about voting in a booth vs. voting by mail, and a lot of people in a lot of states are still expected to do the former. Caucusing by proxy is no more of a pain in the ass than dealing with an absentee ballot.
35
Though I do wonder if Sanders supporters just didn't care, since he got the delegates. I still voted because I wanted it to be a fair representation of the popular vote. However, nobody in my office even bothered (though kept reminding them). So I still don't believe it represents the TRUE pop vote. Maybe just get rid of caucus altogether?
36
@34 No matter how you try to slice it, the difference in accessibility and ease between caucuses and primaries is not small and not inconsequential.
37
Thank God I live in a state with primaries -- and one with a permanent absentee ballot option at that.

Every state with a caucus does theirs differently. I've had friends doing phone banking reach people who said they couldn't caucus because they were too old or disabled. Some states allow for proxies, many do not. Some allow for anonymous voting, many do not. In some states, people have complained about not being able to vote how they want because of an abusive spouse or their boss, union leader, etc. being able to see how they voted. One person in Texas "opened" my eyes about open primaries by telling me that simply registering as a Democrat, which is public information, could prevent them from getting job interviews in their part of the state.

All in all, I think democracy would be better served by following California or Oregon's model of primaries, not caucuses, with private ballots and either permanent absentee ballot option or even 100% vote by mail, or long hours on day of (7am to 8pm) plus early voting and absentee voting. Automatic opt-out voter registration. And none of this nonsense that some east coast states do where you vote for delegates without always knowing who that delegate is pledged for.
38
A question for those of you in Washington who threw away the ballot because it wasn't binding: was there nothing else on the primary ballot? No Congressional or legislative races? Not ballot measures? Nothing else to vote on?
39
@ 38,

Nothing else on the ballot this time.
42
American democratic processes seem so complex. People standing for hours to vote, why is that? Just set up more places for voting seems an obvious solution to me. Australians might hit a busy time while voting, never have I seen lines going round corners.
However it's achieved, Trump can't be President. There was Austria, knife edge voting in a far right fascist. Frightening. The right wing are rising everywhere.
After Bush got in, the terrorists struck America. Knew he would respond as he did. Knew he would ignite, like his father, the Middle East.
And Trump. What madness would he ignite?
It's corrupt. So much of the political system in the U.S.

Great the grass roots are shaking it's pillars. It's a process, the U.S. system has lots of tentacles. Fighting in the streets is one way to go, just people get hurt and killed.

Or swallow the pill one more time, vote Hilary come November. By then one assumes Bernie will have been included in a high political position.So many people are really really fed up.

Hilary needs to come clean about Bill. She just has to say it once, it'll get around. Throw that fucker off her shoulders, own he was a sexual predator and say why she stayed with him.
It's not like millions of women wouldn't nod their heads in agreement.
She is keeping her presentation calm, not something I can say about either Trump or Bernie.
43
'position so ' being highlighted was not my doing.
44
@42 - I've been a California voter for 30 years. Never had to wait longer than 20 minutes, usually less, and now I just vote by mail.

The places in the U.S. where people have to wait for hours are -- quelle suprise! -- all Republican-controlled states and -- quelle suprise encore! -- only in heavily Democratic districts. By strange coincidence, Republican districts all seem to have adequate funding and staffing and it's only in the heavily Democratic districts that we seem to have inadequate staffing.

One rather blatant example was in Ohio in either 2008 or 2012 where the Republican Secretary of State decided to allow the county election boards decide whether to allow for early voting or not (up to a month or so before the election), which of course helps alleviate those long lines on election day. Apparently in Ohio, each county board consists of two Republicans and two Democrats, with a fifth person appointed by the Secretary of State who, because he was a Republican, meant that every county board had a 3-2 Republican tilt. The Democratic members universally across the state voted for early voting because, you know, it's democratic. The Republicans coincidentally voted to allow it in counties with heavy Republican-party registrations and voted not to allow it in counties with heavy Democratic registrations because, you know, partisan game fuckery. Assholes.
45
Yes Kevin, watching the US since the first Catholic President( yes! One for the team) was elected, it has been interesting viewing. Powerful stories.
Well then. Time for a conscious, peaceful and sustained Revolution. The old republicans that have stymied Barack for the last eight years, are still there.
Get behind Hilary, Bernie as V.P.,and vote those other idiots out. Sustained political involvement to reshape your country.
46
@42: The state this thread is about has mail-in voting.

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