The Independent View: Democrats Consider Absentee Voting for Iowa Caucuses with Instant-Runoff Voting

Iowa Democrats on Saturday cracked open the door toward allowing voters to participate in future Iowa Presidential Caucuses by Absentee ballot.

The Iowa Democratic Party Caucus Review Committee, meeting in Des Moines, discussed preliminary recommendations to the State Party Leadership to update the Caucus process. Among the draft proposals would be to create a new process to allow more people to participate despite work conflicts, disabilities, out-of-state travel or the need for child care.

“I think it’s a great way to expand access,” Committee Member Marcia Nichols of Des Moines said. “I think you are including people who are 24/7 workers, you’re including people who just can’t get to caucuses because of their physical limitation,” she said.

Committee Chairman Dave Nagle, a former Iowa Congressman from Waterloo, said the Absentee ballot was the most significant recommendation toward expanding Caucus participation. The Committee also discussed draft recommendations regarding the use of technology, expansion of training, other resources, media relations, and access for voters with disabilities.

The Committee did not include any proposals to simplify the Democratic Caucus Voting process, which requires voters to make a public choice and eliminates candidates who don’t meet a certain threshold of support. Iowa Republicans nominate candidates through a simple straw vote on a paper ballot.

Barriers to participation have long been a complaint about the Iowa Caucuses. The process requires voters to attend Precinct-level meetings in person in order to vote for a Presidential nominee. This year was the first time the Iowa Democratic Party allowed active-duty military and Iowa voters working or studying overseas to participate via a teleconference.

Iowa Democratic and Republican Party Leaders have been reluctant to allow widespread Absentee participation in the past. Iowa has maintained the Caucuses’ First-in-the-Nation status in part by working in partnership with New Hampshire, which holds the First Primary. The Caucuses are also considered by some to be important Party building events that require in-person attendance. The recommendation includes the provision that the Iowa Party would discuss changes with State and National stakeholders before adoption or implementation.

The draft proposal includes restrictions to prevent the Caucuses from becoming essentially an Absentee-voter Primary, Committee members said. Voters would have to show a need to vote Absentee, such as shift work or being home-bound. Committee members noted that would be difficult to enforce, however.

Each County would have its own Absentee process and Absentee ballots would be counted as a separate Precinct with a limited number of Delegate positions. That would eliminate the incentive for a Presidential Campaign to try to amass Absentee ballots rather than getting supporters to attend in person, Committee members and Party officials said.

Absentee voting would use an Instant Run-Off process in which voters rank candidates in order of preference on their ballot. That would allow the elimination of candidates who do not meet a minimum level of support in the Precinct, similar to the Preference Groups at a normal Caucus.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee would have to approve any changes to the Caucus process. But there are still a lot of steps ahead before this and other Caucus proposals even reach that stage. The next Democratic Presidential caucus will be in 2020.

The Caucus Review Committee agreed to delay final approval of its recommendation while the National Party conducts its own review of the nominating process.

New State and National Party Leaders will be selected early next year. Then, the Democratic National Committee will appoint a “Unity Commission” to conduct its own review of the nomination process, which could include new requirements for Caucuses. The Unity Commission’s recommendations would be subject to approval by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee.

The process could take as long as two years, Committee member Norm Sterzenbach said.

Nagle said Iowa’s Caucus Review Panel should leave the door open to make changes if necessary to address any concerns raised by the Unity commission or DNC rules Committee. “We should put it in our pocket and wait and see what the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee does, or the unity commission, or both, and see what adjustments if any we might have to make or what we may be able to bargain for to preserve the integrity of our process,” Nagle said.

When the Republican Party of Iowa did its caucus review in 2012, the Committee did approve final recommendations. But then the report sat on the shelf until after a new Chairman and Central Committee members were chosen in 2014. The GOP State Central Committee never formally voted on the report, although it eventually adopted some of the ideas for the Caucuses in 2016.

One recommendation the Democratic Panel suggested for immediate action was the creation of a Nonpartisan Foundation to raise money for projects to benefit Republican and Democratic Caucuses. Uses might include Caucus promotion and education, technology upgrades, and costs for the use of Public facilities.

I still want to kill the Undemocratic Caucuses entirely.