Primary Primer III: What Happens At Convention

The primaries are upon us and soon both parties will be selecting their nominees. But if the residents of States vote in the primary, what’s the role of the Party Convention? Where do SuperDelegates fit in? Who is really choosing the Presidential candidate?

As we covered in the last two posts, the Presidential nominee for a political party is not directly elected by all voters. Instead, delegates are selected in a variety of ways; most often exclusively by registered members of a particular party. These delegates are then sent to a party’s National Convention to pick the nominee.

Nothing Is For Sure
Oftentimes it is clear who will win the nomination before Convention. However, even with primaries done and delegates pledged, the results are not predetermined. People can walk in expecting to be the Nominee and walk out an also ran. How? Let’s find out.

Voting Share
Unlike in general elections, representation isn’t necessarily based on the number of residents, or even eligible voters. Instead, every State is given a certain number of delegates proportional to the number of votes people in that State cast for the Party’s Presidential candidate in previous elections. So, the more votes your state give to a Democrat (averaged over the last three elections) the delegates your state gets to the Convention.

Who Can Delegates Vote For?
At the Convention, elected (not Super) delegates are bound to vote for whoever won the primary or caucus in their state; and in the same percentage. So, if a candidate on 40% of the vote, they get 40% of the delegates. Whoever wins a majority of the of Convention Delegates receives the nomination.

If no one wins a majority, delegates are released from their pledges. At this point, horse-trading and deals can be struck in a Brokered Convention. Voting continues through successive rounds until one candidate wins a majority.

The Democratic Party actually changed its rules in 1936 because nomination required ⅔ of the delegate vote and made brokered conventions incredibly common. As a result, many nominees ended up being compromise candidates who weren’t even front-runners before the Convention!

And The Winner Is…
Whoever gets the required majority of delegates becomes that party’s nominee. This candidate will receive the prodigious support that a National Party can offer – from local organizing apparatus (like local parties and Democratic Clubs), to the Party’s political brand and, of course, money.

It is up to the Party to come together after a nominee has been chosen and put aside the differences which were expressed in the primary period. Whatever issues were raised, the job of the primary was to air them and give Party members a chance to make the decision of who would perform best in the General election with their eyes open.

Primary Primer II: Who Chooses The Presidential Choosers?

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The primaries are upon us and soon both parties will be selecting their nominees. But if the residents of States vote in the primary, what’s the role of the Party Convention? Where do SuperDelegates fit in? Who is really choosing the Presidential candidate?

In the last post we saw that many of the delegates are elected. But it’s not always clear who can vote for them. In this post we’ll examine who chooses them.

How Many Delegates are There? Who Can Be a Delegate?

Each state is awarded a set number of delegates based on Party rules. In the Democratic Party, for example, delegates are awarded based on a State’s historical electoral vote and its turnout for the Democratic candidate in previous elections. In this way, more Democratic States are given more voice.

Parties may also set representation goals, requiring that some number of seats be reserved for specific classes such as young members, or members of specific ethnic groups. This is often done to bring delegations in-line with the census report for each State.

Who Chooses the Elected Delegates?

Possibly the most important piece of all this – Delegates are RARELY chosen by voters at large. Even though the media makes it sound like caucuses and primaries are open to all, they generally aren’t. There are four kinds of election processes, each with their own rules.

Closed Primaries

In order to vote in a party’s primary, you must  to be registered with that political party before the election.

Deadlines for registration vary but if, for example, you want to vote in the Democratic Primary and you haven’t registered as a Democrat, you won’t be able to. New York actually has the most stringent laws in the country, with registration deadlines month before the vote.

There are 12 states that use a strictly closed primary process, including:[5][4][6]

Open Primaries

Any voter can vote in one party primary of their choice, regardless of registration. So, it’s basically the opposite of the closed primary.

There are 14 States that use a strictly open primary process:

Mixed Primaries

Mixed primaries are anything that’s not strictly open or closed. They have all sorts of rules ranging from some parties being open and others being closed, to using past voting history to decide in which primary a person can vote.

There are only 8 states which use mixed primaries and you can check out all their rules on Ballotpedia.org.

Blanket Primaries (Jungle Primary)

The least popular kind of primary, everyone can vote and the top vote-getter from each party for a particular office wins. So instead of voting by party, voters vote on candidates for office. But if one Democrat gets 100 votes, another 80 votes and the Republican gets 50; the top Democrat and top Republican both go on to the General election as the nominees of their party.

States which use this system are

Democratic Clubs II: What’s In a Number?

A typical Assembly District (AD) in Manhattan

You’ve read about Democratic Clubs and you’ve decided you’d like to get involved. How do you get started? And which Club’s district are you in, anyway?

When it comes to political districts, the first thing you need to know is your Assembly District, or “AD” for short. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know it! Lots of folks don’t, and the numbers change over the years so it may be different then you remember.

The best bet is to click here and do a quick search. When I put in my address, I learn that I’m in the 73rd AD, and that my Assembly Member is Dan Quart.

Now, for me, this makes things easy. The whole of the 73rd AD, from 96th down to 32nd, is represented by one Club: the Lexington Democratic Club. So my next step would be to go to the Lex Club’s website, join the Club and sign up for the e-mail newsletter.

But here’s where it gets confusing. Some clubs cover more than just one AD, and lots of ADs are covered by more than one club! Confused? Let’s look at an example.

Suppose my friend Keiko lives on Roosevelt Island. She goes online and finds out that she lives in the 76th AD and is represented by Assembly Member Seawright. But the 76th AD has two official Democratic Clubs: the Lenox Hill Democratic Club and the Four Freedoms Democratic Club. Which one covers Keiko?

To find out, we have to dig deeper and look at how ADs themselves are politically divided. Next time we’ll look at what are called Assembly District Parts, and learn how to sort out exactly where we stand.

Primary Primer I: Who Chooses The Presidential Nominee

The primaries are upon us and soon both parties will be selecting their nominees. But if the residents of States vote in the primary or caucus, what’s the role of the Party Convention? Where do SuperDelegates fit in? Who is really choosing the Presidential candidate?

In this post we’ll be examining how the delegates which choose the nominee are selected.

Elected Delegates: It Could Be YOU
Delegates don’t come out of thin air; a vast majority of them are elected (we’ll address the ones which aren’t below).

It all starts with petitioning…(unless you’re in a caucus state)
Requirements for getting on the ballot vary by State but there’s always an option to gather signatures from some percentage of the population. Again, depending on the State, petitions may be directly for the candidate (sign for Presidential candidate x) or they may be for specific delegates pledging to vote for that candidate (sign for delegate candidate who will vote for presidential candidate x).

If you want want to petition for a candidate and run as a delegate for him/her, you should contact the campaign.

In New York…
Delegates petition for themselves (or a slate running together) within a Congressional District (CD). They are listed in a predetermined order and, for every delegate a candidate wins in that CD, another delegate candidate is elected. Delegate order is determined in coordination with the Presidential campaign they hope to represent. A campaign may also reject specific delegate candidates.

It builds to the Primary…(unless you’re in a caucus state)
In the primary, voters either select the candidate or individual delegates. Either way the result is the same, the percentage of the vote determines how many delegates a candidate receives and a proportional number of delegate candidates become real delegates.

*NOTE*: Not everyone gets to vote for delegates all the time! In the next post, we’ll be talking about just who gets this critical power.

Ok, you’re in a caucus State…
Though outside the purview of the Manhattan Democratic Party (where we use primaries) we’ll cover it. In a Caucus there’s no petitioning. Party members go to caucus and then select, sometimes over hours of discussion, who they should support and who should be delegates. In this system, delegates may be elected as “uncommitted” to any particular candidate.

Super Delegates
SuperDelegates are unelected delegates. They are politically important people such as Elected officials. The Democratic Party uniquely gives seats to former high-ranking electeds such as past Presidents.

(Almost) Everything You Need To Know About Grassroots Campaign Finance Compliance

FEC Logo

Ever wonder how a PAC becomes a PAC? Our friends at blog.shiftspark.com, where our Secretary Ben Yee also writes, have posted up a great transparency piece about the different requirements and levels of activity that must be reported by the FEC.

If you’re thinking about getting involved in supporting a Presidential candidate with your own, independent activities, this is a must read.

A lot of spending by individuals and small groups gets lost because it isn’t reported. Each time we fail to report, the hard work and commitment of individual donors is lost, depriving them of a voice, and politicians of the real picture of American activism.

Worse yet, people are turned off from participating because the laws to help make our system transparent scare them off.

If you’re raising or spending more than $250 you need to report.

But don’t be intimidated, you don’t have to do very much and this post breaks it own with step-by-step instructions.

Democratic Clubs Part I: Size Matters

By Cory Evans

Want to get involved in the Democratic Party at the hyper-local level? I don’t mean Congress, or even the City Council — I mean really, really local. If you do, and you live in Manhattan, you should consider getting involved with one of the many party clubs organized throughout the City.

Broadly speaking, there are two categories of Democratic Party clubs in New York City. The first category is called district clubs, the second category is called city-wide clubs. Today we’ll talk about these two categories and explain the differences.

District clubs represent the Democratic Party within a certain geographic area. For example, my Democratic Club — called the Lexington Democratic Club — represents the Democratic Party throughout the 73rd Assembly District.

You can be a member of as many district clubs as you want, and there are dozens throughout the City. But, by courtesy and tradition, you can vote in one. That club is called your voting club or home club, and you are said to be a voting member of that club.

Citywide clubs focus on advocating for an issue or cause within the Democratic Party. Examples include the Manhattan Young Democrats, the Stonewall Democratic Club and the Muslim Democratic Club. You can join as many city-wide clubs as you like and you can vote in all of them if you wish to.

But how do you know which district club covers your neighborhood? And how are the geographic borders decided anyway? I’ll try to answer both those questions next time when we focus on district clubs and district leaders.