At Des Moines' 23rd Precinct, for example, just three miles from Barack Obama's triumphant victory party, organizers failed to adequately explain the caucus process, voters publicly protested the participation of two immigrant women, and Spanish translations were unavailable. And while in theory, the process of "convincing" one's neighbors to caucus for a certain candidate sounds like grown-up debate club, in practice, it looks more like junior high school clique formation, replete with peer pressure.And she concludes:
The Iowa caucuses are certainly thrilling, but are they just? Even with Democratic turnout at 239,000 this year, up from 124,000 in 2004, only a small fraction of eligible voters, about 11 percent, found time to devote two hours to the caucus. And it wasn't just in the 23rd Precinct that captains were unable to control crowds. The Des Moines Register reported that people all over the state left disorganized caucuses without being counted, and many voters questioned the accuracy of tallies.
So is a rowdy caucus really a purer form of democracy than the ease and privacy of a voting booth? All evidence points to no. Maybe America would sit up and take notice of that uncomfortable truth if more of the national media ditched the swank after-parties and covered a caucus.
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