If they're merely doing a straw poll on the caucus vs. primary isue, why are they harvesting email addresses and phone numbers?

Caucuses can be cool. But my LD dropped the ball in 2016 by putting about 100 precincts into a single location. The line to get in was a quarter-mile long and the process did indeed take most of the day.

It shouldn't be this way.

If Washington Democrats have a caucus in 2020, my backyard will be a caucus location. People can bring their kids. And I will have beer.

I gave up on caucuses after years of listening to the lefty self-righteous types who dominate them go on and on about dreamboat Ralph, or dreamboat Dennis, and no doubt dreamboat Bernie during the last cycle. Please folks, get rid of these purity test farces. The are the antithesis of democratic.

Then how will the Bernie Bros be able to shout down the soccer moms?

Your link to submit a preference is functional, however, after clicking "Submit" on the preference site, a page appears saying: "403 Forbidden". It is here: https://manatee-jaguar-gj7z.squarespace.com Dems--get your shit together.

Rich, use this for your link, and it is functional: https://manatee-jaguar-gj7z.squarespace.com

I live in one of the state's most diverse zip codes--SE Seattle's 98118. Census data show that whites are the minority, with about 1 white person for every 2 non-white people. The data also show that more than one-third are foreign-born. At my caucus site, however, the numbers were flipped, with a majority of participants being white, and nearly everybody I heard speak did so in perfect English. Something is wrong with that picture.

I had the misfortune of being the only person from my precinct able to attend the 34th district caucus, and therefore got stuck attending that shitshow. After that debacle, I will never again participate in a caucus-based system at any level, nor will I support the 34th district democrats.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/washington-democrats-feel-the-burn-of-disorganized-legislative-district-caucuses/

@7- I think you hit the nail on the head. Dem and Repub alike, these events are difficult, intimidating, and often organized in such a way that lots of folks cannot easily participate.

I feel a little bad echoing the 'bernie bro' sentiment, but it was certainly a major thing last go-round, super annoying, and super aggressive. I assume the trumpists behaved the same way at the GOP events.

Yay primary; boo caucus!

For those saying that they didn't like their LD caucus, I have bad news for you. The LD, CD, and County (in some instances) caucuses will still happen. The only caucus that would go away, if the primary option is chosen in the DSAAP, is the precinct caucus. If that goes away, then not just the people that might have been delegates and alternates elected at the precinct level will be at the LD caucus. No, instead ALL people registered to vote in that LD can go to the LD caucus and possibly become delegates for the next level.

It seems like people need to learn more about the improved caucus plan, but none of that information is in this article. It seems like every single issue in this opinion piece is solved if the improved caucus plan is used for the DSAAP.

I urge you all to do more research on the topic before making up your mind on a process that will no matter what be different from the 2016 election.

"I feel a little bad echoing the 'bernie bro' sentiment, but it was certainly a major thing last go-round, super annoying, and super aggressive." --Kennesaw Mtn

Not remotely true for me. There were NO 'aggressive' nor 'super aggressive' Bernie Bros (nor Hillary Hoes) (is that a thing?) at my caucus. NOR at the Delegates thingy, after. Everyone was respectful and all were allowed to say their piece. NO booing, no interrupting; none of that shit.

"I urge you all to do more research on the topic before making up your mind... "
Thanks, Kantamoran. That's a BINGO.

Probably some edits are needed:

"The Washington State Democratic Party is thinking about holding a primary instead of holding several chaotic and undemocratic caucuses when picking their nominee for president," <---not true

This will NOT get rid of all caucuses. It will only eliminate the precinct caucus which was the shortest, and easiest caucus.

"Caucusing requires participants to block off an indeterminate number of hours on a weekend, travel to a physical location, and then have in-person conversations with neighbors about politics." <--- not true.

Maybe the author could have at least taken the time to interview someone who is on the caucus improvement committee so you could find out that people will be able to still vote without going to the caucus? If the author is so inclined to investigate the other side of this issue, you can contact me on Facebook and I will direct you to the people working on improving the caucuses. Thank you.

To the people who are commenting that this would only eliminate the precinct caucus, I think you are missing the point. Under the primary option, the low barrier mail-in ballot election would pick the nominee we support and the caucuses would only pick the delegates to State and National Conventions. Folks are treating that like it would be the same as getting rid of the caucuses all together because 99% of the people only care who the nominee is. The only people who really care about who the delegates to the state and national conventions are the people who are running for those positions and their friends and family. Under our current system folks not only need to go to the precinct caucuses but representatives from each precinct need to waste a whole date at the district caucuses that pick the delegates too or their precinct's votes for the nominee are lost even though they do not actually give a hoot who the delegates to the state and national convention are. So if we go with the primary option the only people who will be at those district caucuses will be those who care about who ends up a delegate to the conventions which should make those shorter and simpler since the numbers will be smaller and more importantly spare those of us who only care who our nominee is from having to go.

Instant.
Runoff.
Primary.

Precinct caucuses will be REMOVED, people are NOT EXCLUDED you can fill out online absentee ballots, failed LD & County causues WILL REMAIN,

Rich bro, who was your source on this, State DNC Chair?

@15

I'm with YOU, Hippy!
Let us rank our choices
as SAVE ourselves a Bunch of money.

Exactly, is anything @14 incorrect? I don't care how you enthusiasts want to choose who goes to what conventions, caucus yourselves out.

@18 - Yes and no. Most is correct but it's not correct that people need to go to precinct caucuses. With the newly proposed caucus, people could mail in their ballot or vote online instead of going to the caucus. They could also just drop off their ballots (not spend a whole day) at the caucus location. They don't have to stay and vote for delegates if they don't care.

@19: dropping off a ballot at a caucus location is great, but how the hell do I do that when traffic is backed up for a mile-plus in any direction leading to the caucus site? And no parking within a mile radius either. Because that's the situation that faced me in 2016 when I tried to do just that at my caucus in south King County.
All I care about is choosing the Democratic presidential nominee. You political geeks can knock yourselves out deciding who gets to go to the various conventions to vote for that nominee - I don't care about that.

Caucus is a stupid confusing exclusionary word. Also, having been involved in one a while back, it was frustrating and incredibly time consuming. Primary is much better. Do that.

My own preference is for primaries over caucuses(at the very least, caucuses should be radically reformed so that caucus-goers could simply fill out a multiple-preference ballot and then leave immediately, rather than having to be there for hours for repeated "fan outs"-there's no reason why being there for first fan-out or just handing in a preference ballot shouldn't be enough, and all caucuses SHOULD offer childcare), but it borrows the hell out of me that most of the impetuous for the "get rid of caucuses" things came from the Hillary wing of the party and is driven, as much as anything, by a pointless fixation on the part of the Hillary people to deny that Bernie's campaign made any sort of a strong showing at all. The only VALID reason to switch from caucuses to primaries should be to make the process more democratic. Efforts to deny that a previous campaign actually demonstrated the support level it demonstrated should never be a part of it, and nobody has any reason at all to be trying to get back on Bernie's 2016 campaign-that campaign's existence made no difference in the general election result and everybody knows it

That should be "bothers the hell out of me", not "borrows the hell out of me". Damn it, why DOESN'T this comments thread set-up let you edit previous posts?

@20 You could also vote online and not go at all.
@22 The caucus is being radically reformed so you could vote online, mail in your ballot or drop off. The people who like to talk and debate would be free to do that. The issue with this article is that the writer didn't even mention that. Also, I don't think the "Hillary wing" benefits from the primaries. In fact, I'd imagine that Bernie could benefit from the primaries in western Washington. The way the rules work, you only get delegates (and the delegates is what counts - not the number of votes directly) if you crack 15% in the district. So the district's delegates get split between the candidates that get over 15%. With a large number of candidates and an earlier primary (so candidates might not have dropped out), I can imagine Bernie getting over 50% of the vote, and if 6 or 7 candidates split the remaining 50%, no one else could crack 15%. If they don't, Bernie gets 100% of the delegates for the district. There are districts in the state where Bernie is less popular so other candidates could get delegates but around Seattle, he could sweep. Of course, A LOT can happen in a year so things might shift. The way things are looking now though, with a primary, Bernie's delegates percentage in WA could be much larger than his vote percentage. Thus, some "Hillary wing" conspiracy doesn't make sense to me.

24: And I'm not against getting rid of the caucus-I just want it to be about the future, not about delegitimizing anything or anyone from previous campaigns.