Major parties in Washington state held presidential caucuses on February 9, and will hold presidential primaries on Tuesday, February 19. For Democrats, the caucuses were used to choose all the state’s delegates to the national convention; for Republicans, half the delegates are chosen according to caucus results, and half according to the presidential primary results.
As far as is known, no state has ever before held both caucuses and primaries so close together in time. Therefore, the Washington state events will provide interesting data on the difference in results between caucuses and primaries.
The presidential primary is all-mail, except in King and Pierce Counties. Voters who vote by mail must check one of two boxes, or their votes won’t count. One box says, “I declare that I am a member of the Republican Party and I have not participated and will not participate in the 2008 precinct caucus or convention system of any other party.” The other box says, “I declare that I consider myself a Democrat and I will not participate in the nomination process of any other political party for the 2008 presidential election.” Voters at the polls must sign in and also check one of those sentences. Obviously, a voter must use the appropriate party’s ballot, after choosing that party.
Each of the two major parties will receive a list of which voters checked the box for that particular party. Mail ballots were mailed to voters on February 1 and must be postmarked by February 19, so the results will be slow to be tabulated.
Names on the Democratic ballot are Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson. Names on the Republican ballot are Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Alan Keyes, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson.
Research may be limited by a couple factors. 1. Ron Paul did exceptionally well in Spokane county and yet that did not get much publicity. That might discourage Paul supporters. 2. The Republican precinct caucuses determined 18 CD delegates and yet the candidate preferences of those were not announced. CD delegates were probably shared by all three candidates. The delay in announcement might affect the primary vote.
The simultaneous caucus/primary would be very useful if the voters could participate in BOTH. Then the results could be compared.
Unfortunately, each voter can only participate in one or the other. So it’s essentially one “state” holding a caucus, one holding a primary, and an additional selection bias as the voters chose which “state” to “live in”.
So I really don’t see any utility for researchers.
“As far as is known, no state has ever before held both caucuses and primaries so close together in time.”
Texas has had a hybrid caucus/primary system for years. It started off with a non-binding primary in 1980 and by the 1988 Super Tuesday Texas was splitting the number of delegates allocated in each contest. The caucuses would be held immediately following the closing of polls for the primary. This year on the Democratic side Texas has 228 delegates at stake. 126 will be allocated in the primary. 67 are then allocated in the caucus which will commence this year fifteen minutes after the polls have closed on the primary. The remaining 35 delegates in Texas are superdelegates.
It occurs to me that, should Clinton win the Dem primary in Washington, she would use that as ammo to try to invalidate any and every caucus she lost. This non-binding primary was not, I feel, a good idea from the point of view of Democratic Party unity- or of clear results in elections.
In Washington pick-a-party primaries, the choice of parties is on the ballot. The ballot instructions simply say to mark only one candidate (ie it is as invalid to vote for two Democrats as it is one Republican and one Democrat).
The party oath is on the secrecy envelope. In a mail-in vote, the ballot is marked and placed in a secrecy ballot which the voter signs, and places in a mailing envelope which is then mailed to the election officials.
The election officials open the mailing envelope and check the signature. This is the equivalent of signing-in for in-person voting. In this case, the party selection will be noted on the voter registration rolls (this will be expunged after 60 days). The ballot will then be pulled and counted.
Looking at various county election web sites it is clear that one does not have to vote in the same primary as indicated by the signed oath – though it is judiciously worded, and most voters would infer such a requirement.
It is not clear whether the ballots will be segregated on the basis of the oath or not. I suspect not. There are a number of non-partisan local ballot issues, and it could be illegal to segregate the counting of those, and it may also be illegal to separate the counting of presidential votes as well.
Turnout for the primary should be much heavier than the caucuses. Snohomish County has about 1/10 of the state’s population and had 102,000 ballots returned by Friday. In Washington mail-in ballots can be postmarked on election day and count, and also be turned in in person.
Clallam County had a 10% return rate (of registered voters) on the first day available which was before the caucuses.
There is also the Texas system, about which I learned very recently. Apparently, caucuses and primaries are held the same day, just hours apart.
I guess I hadn’t refreshed this page. See commenter #3.
A correction. Washington law does provide for segregating ballots based on the oath on the outer envelope, and counting them separately for the presidential primaries. It does appear to be possible to cross-over internally. In addition, write-ins are permitted.
Barrack Obama “won” the caucus vote 68-31% from Hillary Clinton, then proceeded to barely eeke out a win over Hillary Clinton in the primary vote, 50% to 49.6%.
Barrack Obama’s 11 largest percentage vote totals WERE ALL CAUCUS STATES. This statistic can be dismissed as Barrack campaigned harder in these states and therefore deserves the larger victory margin. However, if a caucus win margin does not accurately reflect the will of the larger population, this MUST be considered by the superdelegates and the remaining delegates when they choose who to vote for.
I commend Washington State for giving affirming that Barrack Obama used his caucus victories to overexaggerate his real popularity and lead. The reason Barrack Obama is not the consensus favorite is the overemphasis on a lead that was not as great as he portended. This overemphasized lead has led to Hillary Clinton’s character being assailed for not dropping out of the race when it has become very clear the question should have never been proffered in the first place.