No amount of hand-wringing and rushing by state lawmakers can undo the Colorado presidential caucus mess that beset voters, both political parties and the rest of the public March 1.
Everyone is still trying to peer through the dust to figure out what happened. Let it settle.
Lawmakers need to take more time in trying figure out how to make electing presidential nominees easier, fairer and more accessible the next time around — which won’t be for four years.
No one thinks the nomination process to select delegates in Colorado went well this year. The Democratic caucus precincts were overrun by enthusiastic, often first-time participants. In more than one location, the archaic selection process of showing hands or lining up along walls spilled outside of buildings after fire-officials were concerned about danger.
While it was all-in-all a good thing to have so many people charged about the country’s political leadership, instead of deferring to the usual engaged minority of voters, it wasn’t planned for nor accommodated. The process itself is inconvenient, sometimes intimidating and poorly understood at best.
At a time when voters have not only come accustomed to the convenience of mail-ballot voting but charmed with it and demanding about it, the caucus-night chaos plan clearly no longer cuts it.
The Republican caucuses were even more of a disaster. State GOP officials decided last year they wouldn’t offer a presidential straw poll at precinct caucuses this year. While the notion of raising your hand if you like a candidate is fairly unnerving for voters looking for democracy, simply selecting mystery delegates to a later event totally unknown to most people is anything but fair or democratic.
The biggest part of the problem is just that. Most people are shocked to learn that America’s political parties are essentially private clubs, and the nominees for office are chosen by ruling club members.
Welcome to American politics.
In the end, huge numbers of voters felt disenfranchised by the selection and caucusing process, when political leaders should be working for just the opposite. So fresh off this disaster, state lawmakers are rushing through House Bill 1454 to restore full presidential primary elections in Colorado in 2020.
The bill looks good so far, especially parts that allow anyone — even independent voters — to temporarily register as a Democrat or Republican to vote in a presidential primary, and then switch back to unaffiliated, if they choose.
But the primary and delegate selection season is far from over. State lawmakers should wait until after the dust has cleared from the entire process before working toward a fix. There could easily be something in the next few primary elections or something gleaned after the presidential election that would be useful to state lawmakers.
Stand down. Neither state Republicans nor Democrats are going to gain or lose anything by waiting to tell constituents to say they fixed a presidential election four years from now. Find out what this looks like here and in other states after the process plays out. Create something that is as inclusive and engaging as possible, and then let the party faithfuls, the rank-and-file as well as all the Joe and Jane Voters have a say in the matter.
If legislators are compelled to do something, create an interim committee to study the issue after the election and create a bill for next year that the public can weigh in on. The system state lawmakers are trying to fix once looked good, too.