Last weekend a number of Stanford students — including ourselves — descended on Nevada to campaign for their favorite presidential candidate before the Democratic caucuses. Although we expected to see a system reminiscent of old town hall meetings, where the community comes together to decide as a collective which candidate to support, what we encountered was a system rife with injustices aimed at the very people the Democratic Party is supposed to support.

To begin with, the caucuses took place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on a Saturday, a time during which significant portions of the population, especially the working class population, must work. Since the person has to be present for the entire duration of the caucus for their preference to count, even employees with a normal lunch break could not participate. In addition, since “voting” for a candidate involves spatially positioning yourself with other supporters, the caucus system requires a person to not only be physically present, but physically mobile and capable of standing for long durations. This leaves many disabled people without a political voice. We spent most of our time this weekend canvassing neighborhoods, spreading the word about the caucuses and our candidate. During that time we heard innumerable stories from people who were completely disenfranchised by the caucus system because they either could not get out of work, or they could not stand for long enough periods of time to take part. The incredible biases inherent in the caucus system are evident in the voter turnout; approximately two percent of eligible Nevadans participated in the Democratic caucuses. Compare that to the 15 to 20 percent of the eligible population that voted in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary.

Furthermore, the caucus system doesn’t only disadvantage people by excluding them. The very process, by which people are forced to express their opinion in front of their neighbors, creates social pressures that change people’s voting behavior. Additionally, caucuses include 15 minutes dubbed “realignment” during which people who voted for a candidate who in the first round did not receive the requisite 15 percent support to remain eligible must either leave or move to a new preference group, and people who did vote for eligible candidates can campaign for the realignment vote. We witnessed on multiple occasions someone who was pressured beyond their limits to vote for a candidate, exasperatedly giving in just so that they could escape the mob pressing down on them. The importance of a secret ballot in preserving the integrity of a population’s political choices is blindingly apparent in light of the caucuses.

There are many more instances of the caucuses’ shortcomings: the automated phone system used for reporting precinct results that has no accountability structure, the fact that most caucuses are run by volunteers with less than two hours of training and the relative lack of general information available to the public regarding caucus procedure combine to create a disastrous potential for fraud. We witnessed instances of volunteers closing registration early (by as much as a full half-hour), muddling vote counts, abbreviating the system to save time (to a detriment) and even running parts of the caucus incorrectly because they did not know, and were not trained to know, proper procedures. For a group of observers (we were allowed to watch but not participate) to continually have to correct the precinct chairmen because we knew better than they did is disgusting.

A system that inherently disadvantages both the working class and the disabled, two groups for which the Democratic Party is supposed to fight, while simultaneously favoring obnoxious and abrasive individuals, seems less democratic, and less just, when compared to a simple primary vote where everyone has the same voice. We are sad and troubled by the Democratic Party’s choice to support the caucus system, and hope that the surfacing stories of fraud and disenfranchisement will create meaningful discussion on the highest level about the relevance of such a paradigm in today’s society.

Clay Sader ‘08 and Devon Swezey ‘08 believe deeply that a truly democratic process relies heavily on the integrity of each individual’s political voice.