Few Changes Proposed for Democratic Party Presidential Nominating Process

George Wenschhof

The presidential nominating process received only minor changes by Democratic National Committee (DNC) Rules and By-Laws Committee. In an expected, but disappointing announcement, the Rules and By-Laws committee essentially left things as they were, only tweaking minor areas in the convoluted and highly questionable method used in determining the party presidential nominee. The problems of the process were high lighted during the 2008 presidential primary.

Left unchanged is the two and sometimes three step process of awarding delegates to candidates when states hold their primaries. Still in place is a percentage of the delegates are awarded proportionally by the total vote received by candidate and then by the proportional vote received by candidate in each congressional district. A winner takes all is the more appropriate method.

Also, still in place is the old caucus style (in about a dozen or more states) manner of determining delegates awarded to presidential candidates. Hardly, a true democratic process, as very few registered voters participate in this open, lengthy and contentious voting procedure.

Unfortunately, Superdelegates, who are not even elected by the voters, will continue to play a major part in the nomination process as was witnessed in the 2008 election. The only tweaking was a reduction from Superdelegates representing 20% of the total delegates awarded to 15%. The other minor change was that Superdelegates can no longer wait until the convention to indicate who they support. Now, they would be required to show their preference of candidate when their state finished the primary vote. Hardly, a sign of reform.

The dates the states vote also received little to no change with Iowa (Feb. 6), New Hampshire (Feb. 14), Nevada (Feb. 18) and South Carolina (Feb. 28) remaining the first four early Democratic primaries. All other states will have to hold their primaries between March 6 and June 12, again a process that encourages states to push for early primaries so they may still have an impact in the nomination process.

Instead, a rotating manner should be implemented as to who the first four states to hold primaries will be and the remainder of the states also rotated and primaries set uniformly over the next four months, balancing the number of awarded delegates, so as to not give an earlier scheduled primary more weight.

All in all, a disappointing set of recommendations coming from the Rules and By-Laws committee, which will continue to allow a convoluted and less than fair process in which Democrats will choose their presidential nominee.

The Democratic National Committee will vote on the recommendations at the annual meeting held in St. Louis on August 19-20.

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