Unlocking The Mysteries Of Delegate Selection

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. While following the Republican primary race this year, I found myself wondering why the voting system varies from state to state. Why do some states have caucuses and others primaries? And if a caucuses' results aren't binding, how are the delegates actually chosen?

To get some explanations, we invited Josh Putnam, who runs the elections blog Frontloading HQ. He's a visiting assistant professor of political science at Davidson College in North Carolina. His focus in his research and in the classroom is on campaigns and elections.

Josh Putnam, welcome to FRESH AIR. Why are there so many different systems for selecting delegates, state by state? Does the Constitution or federal law have anything to say about that?

JOSH PUTNAM: Well, the Constitution doesn't really say much of anything. If we go back to the discussions around the founding, you know, it doesn't even - the Constitution, that is - doesn't even account for parties in there. So this is a situation where the states have the authority, one of those enumerated powers that's left up to the states to decide.

GROSS: So who does decide what happens in the state primary process? Is it the state? Is it the party?

PUTNAM: It's a combination of the two. Ultimately, the state party has the final say in whether or not they're going to have a primary or caucus. But at the end of the day, there's also this incentive, I suppose, that state parties have to opt into a presidential primary, simply because the state funds it in most cases.

Otherwise, they're footing the bill for a caucus or a primary of their own, which can end up being fairly expensive.

GROSS: So if it's a primary, then the state pays, and if it's a caucus, then the party pays?

PUTNAM: That's right.

GROSS: So what's the difference between a primary and a caucus?

PUTNAM: Well, a primary functions pretty much like a general election does. You go in, you sign in with an election official, and you go and cast your vote and leave. A caucus is different from that. You go in - and certainly the presidential preference vote is part of the process - but we're talking about, in addition to that, a three- or four-hour meeting that deals with other party business: setting up the platform process for the subsequent state convention and so on and so forth. So again with a caucus, we're dealing with something that's much more of a time commitment on the part of caucus-goers in this case.

GROSS: And so that's one reason why there might be a much smaller turnout for a caucus than a primary?

PUTNAM: That's a significant reason why we see lower turnout.

GROSS: So let's look at the caucuses in Maine that were held earlier this month. So Mitt Romney won over Ron Paul, 39 percent to 36 percent, and it was a less-than-200-vote difference, and at the same time, there were votes in three counties that weren't counted. So if those votes were counted, who knows what the results will be.

But putting the confusion of those results aside for a moment, let's just try to understand how those Maine caucuses work and what the votes actually mean. What do those votes count for? Was that just a straw poll? What do those votes actually mean?

PUTNAM: The problem this time around, and perhaps with the Republican process, is that these are non-binding votes. I mean, we've heard this over and over again in the news, from Iowa on through the last few caucus contests that we had - Maine over this past weekend - for instance, that again, this is a non-binding contest.

And that's true. Typically, folks will come in, they'll have this president preference vote, a straw-poll vote, and then people have the option of leaving after that. But attendant to that is a delegate selection process, where folks are selected or elected by those that are still there, to move on to the next round, whether it be a county caucus or a district caucus or even on to the state convention.

What we're talking about, a large group of people at the precinct level choosing a smaller group of people to move on to the county level, and then the process repeats itself. And the delegates gradually winnow themselves down. So they're choosing delegates from among the people that are left at the county level, to move on to the district level, at the district level to move on to the state convention.

GROSS: So first there's a straw-poll vote, that doesn't count, but then people stick around and actually vote for the delegates?

PUTNAM: Right, right. So it's naïve of us to think that there's no transference of presidential preference through this process. But we don't have, at least with the Republican presidential process in 2012, a firm grasp on how that's actually translating from one step to the next.

GROSS: Let's apply this to what the Ron Paul strategy seems to be now. The Ron Paul strategy seems to be that after the vote in a caucus, the Ron Paul people stick around so that they can have more sway in the actual selection of delegates process. Explain how that works. Like, explain what they're trying to do, what their strategy is and how it would work if it succeeded.

PUTNAM: Well, again, the assumption going into this is that the number of delegates moving forward, are going to be close to proportional to vote in the straw-poll vote. But there's nothing in most of these state party rules that requires that. And that's the kind of loophole in the process that the Paul folks are taking advantage of, that they will stick around and be very regimented in making sure that their supporters gobble up all those delegate slots to the next round of this process.

And that very greatly increases their chances of pushing folks through to the national convention. The straw poll is only for show, essentially. And really where this comes in is that in most cycles, the nominee is settled on really quickly. So the straw poll becomes a part of a candidate's momentum, for instance, and then once we finally get around to the state convention, we already know who the nominee is and those delegates line up behind that nominee.

At this point in 2012, we've got a situation where we don't have a clear front-runner, we don't have a clear front-runner with momentum, so we've got a competition for these delegates, and the Paul folks are trying to exploit that.

GROSS: So Rick Santorum won the caucuses in Colorado, in Minnesota, you know, recently. Does that mean he won the delegates? It doesn't then, huh?

PUTNAM: It does not necessarily mean that he won the delegates, no. To prove that, we'd need to have a handle on what his organization was like across the state, and we just don't have a feel for that. We don't have a feel for that for what's happening with Ron Paul, either.

GROSS: There's been several states that have had pretty serious problems in the Republican primary and caucus process this year. There was Iowa, Romney was announced as the winner, a few weeks later they announced that Santorum was probably the winner, but there were problems in several districts, there's never going to be a completely accurate count.

And the in Missouri, why don't you explain what happened in Missouri.

PUTNAM: In terms of having both a primary and a caucus?

GROSS: Yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PUTNAM: Oh, that may take several years to explain that. Essentially, the Missouri state legislature had a very difficult time attempting to move back its presidential primary to comply with the new Democratic and Republican party rules governing when states could hold primaries and caucuses.

And they couldn't do it. There were several bills that made their way through the legislature, and one was passed that would have moved the process back to March 6th, Super Tuesday, but it also contained a provision that would have stripped the governor of the power to appoint folks to vacancies to statewide office.

Because of that, the governor vetoed the bill, which scrapped the move to March 6th, and in a subsequent special session, the legislature was unable to get on the same page as far as moving it back. There was a split within the Republican Party that's in control of the legislature there.

Part of the legislative caucus there wanted to keep the primary early so they could have influence despite the penalties that would have been attendant to that, and the other part was more pragmatic, I suppose, about it, wanting to move back to maintain the full allotment of delegates that they had.

As I said, couldn't get on the same page and could not even cancel what would have been in there, and what was, by all accounts, a meaningless primary that took place on February 7th.

GROSS: Because the party is not going to count what happened on February 7th.

PUTNAM: It was a straw poll vote that's even less meaningful than what we're seeing in some of these caucus states, yeah.

GROSS: So Santorum won this straw poll on February 7. What does that mean? I mean, he seemed so victorious, like he won it, but what does that actually mean?

PUTNAM: Well, it, in conjunction with the wins in Minnesota and Colorado that night, showed that he had some momentum in this race and that he was a viable alternative. Why Missouri was so important was because Newt Gingrich didn't make the ballot. So it was a clear demonstration, though it was completely meaningless, that Rick Santorum could hold his own against Mitt Romney and really dominate the contest.

GROSS: So how has the primary process been undercut by the errors in calculations, the votes that weren't tabulated? It just seems to be a lot of problems this year.

PUTNAM: There seemed to be some problems this year. I think a part of that has to do with the calendar that developed this time around is that we had, you know, just this very slow buildup of contest, and we haven't had, you know, that Super Tuesday yet, where we've got 10, 12 contests happening on the same day.

And being that as it is, we've been able to really scrutinize the votes that are taking place in each state, one by one.

GROSS: Having this overview of how, state by state, the delegate selection process varies, it just makes you wonder, does everybody's vote count equally in the primary process? And in some ways, it seems like the answer is no because people are voting in so many different kind of systems. Like one system's a straw poll, and one system is a primary, where your vote goes directly to choosing the delegates. So do you think of the votes as all being equal?

PUTNAM: Well, I guess the main problem there, at least traditionally, has been for states that hold either primaries or caucuses after the point at which someone has passed that 50-percent-plus-one delegate barrier, that they don't matter. There's no incentive for voters in those states to come out and vote for a candidate of their preference, other than to affect the delegate selection process that will obviously put out delegates that will support who's going to be the nominee at that point.

But yeah, it's fair to say, potentially, that given the rules that it's - votes count differently in different states, or at least voters have different incentives, that it's easier to participate in a primary state than it is in a caucus state. The time commitment alone forces folks away from that process.

GROSS: But I guess there was a time when people didn't vote at all, when it was really just backroom deals, choosing the candidates.

PUTNAM: That's it, and, you know, those pre-'68 days, or I guess '68-and-before days, you know, the primaries and caucuses were similar to what we saw in Missouri recently: They were just for show, to show that the candidate had some support in that state and that, you know, potentially they'd do well there in a general election and to make the case for folks that were actually making these decisions at the conventions later on.

GROSS: Kind of like a test screening, get audience reaction.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PUTNAM: That's right, that's right.

GROSS: So let's go back to 1968, when the primary process was reformed, after the 1968 Democratic convention that nominated Hubert Humphrey. And just to set the scene a little bit, this is the convention in which there's a huge anti-war protest outside of the convention. The protestors are being tear-gassed and beaten. Journalists are being gassed and in some cases beaten by police.

And inside, a very chaotic scene, as well. So let's go inside the convention hall. Who were the candidates?

PUTNAM: Who were the candidates? So again, we'd had a process where Lyndon Johnson had lost the New Hampshire primary and opted to not seek re-election in '68. That led to Eugene McCarthy being a candidate. He'd been on the New Hampshire ballot, had come in very close to Lyndon Johnson there.

Robert Kennedy had been a part of the process, as well, obviously was assassinated just after the California primary in June of that year. So wasn't obviously a viable candidate at the convention, but also the person who emerged late in the process, who had not participated in any of these presidential primaries, was Hubert Humphrey, the eventual nominee.

And that was viewed in light of the chaos going on outside of the convention, was viewed as not being necessarily and accurate reflection of what rank-and-file members of the Democratic Party in 1968 thought their nominee should be or who they thought it should be.

GROSS: How did Humphrey get to bet the nominee if he hadn't participated in any of the primaries?

PUTNAM: Well again, the primaries at that point in time were just a show. They were a way for candidates to demonstrate that they had some strengths and viability in any given state or region that could translate to the general election. The ultimate decision was not bound in any way by - I'm sorry, the ultimate decision for the nominee, for the nomination, was not bound by anything that had happened in those primaries and caucuses at that time. So they merely served as advisory.

And in '68, that advice was essentially ignored because Humphrey had not participated in any of the primaries.

GROSS: And what were some of the reforms that came out of this?

PUTNAM: Well, the major thing was that it made, unlike what we'd seen in the time in '68 and before, it made the primaries and caucuses binding, that the decisions made in those primaries and caucuses would affect the delegates that were chosen to go to the convention and thereby affecting who the ultimate nominee was going to be.

GROSS: My guest is Josh Putnam. He runs the elections blog Frontloading HQ and is a visiting assistant professor of political science at Davidson College in North Carolina. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: We're talking about the primary process with Josh Putnam. He runs the elections blog Frontloading HQ. What has surprised or interested you most in this current primary process?

PUTNAM: Surprised, I guess I'm most surprised at the volatility that we've seen on the Republican side this time around, that it's not something that we've typically seen. I mean, this is just a very, very atypical cycle for the Republican Party, that typically Republican primary voters will line up behind a nominee fairly quickly, and we're just not seeing this, this time around.

And that's just indicative of the divisions within the party right now, that you've got on the one hand a Tea Party faction, on the other an establishment faction within the party that's trying to decide who the best candidate is to go up against Barack Obama in the fall.

GROSS: When you look at, like, the number of debates that the Republicans have had so far, a number I frankly have lost track of, and think of all the money that the candidates spend on this really long primary process, you know, it kind of makes you wonder why not make the primaries and the caucuses all on one day or a couple of days or have them in, like, one or two months. Why is dragged out for so long? What's the logic behind that?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PUTNAM: That may be a question better asked of the national parties. I mean, again, what we've got here is something of an ad-hoc system that's developed over more than a generation, right. But the sequential nature of it has its benefits.

It on the one hand can allow the vetting of the eventual nominee, that all the warts can be dealt with before the general election. But alternatively, it can allow for lesser-known candidates to rise up and take advantage of the process and maybe emerge as a nominee, both of which we would, kind of, lose if we just had a one-shot-deal national primary.

GROSS: You not only study the primaries, I mean, you study the whole election process, including redistricting, the Electoral College. So when you stand back, and you look at the primaries, and you look at the actual election process, do you ever think our democracy is maybe slightly less democratic than we think it is in terms of all votes being equal?

PUTNAM: That's a tough one. I just really try to steer clear of normative questions like that, these would've, could've, should've sorts of questions. Because when we talk specifically about the presidential primary process, at the end of the day, it's party business, and they can decide how democratic it is or how seemingly authoritarian it seems to be or whatever, right, the party has a heavy hand in it.

But this type of scrutiny that we're seeing in 2012 is a healthy exercise, right, that we're looking at, very closely, how this caucus process is run. And we'll leave it up to the interaction between the rank-and-file members of any given party and, you know, the state party, the national party itself to determine whether or not there need to be some sort of tweak to the system to make it more reflective of our or their collective vision of what democracy is.

GROSS: Well, Josh Putnam, thank you so much for talking with us.

PUTNAM: Glad to be with you, Terry.

GROSS: Josh Putnam runs the elections blog Frontloading HQ, and he's an assistant visiting professor of political science at Davidson College in North Carolina. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.