DNC rejects debate on climate change and casts doubt on virtual caucus

At the summer meeting in San Francisco this weekend, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) addressed two issues of great concern to voters: climate change and Russia's interference in 2020. The decisions made by party leaders on both points frustrated activists and other Democrats.

MEPs rejected on Saturday a proposal to allow presidential candidates to participate in third party debates, thus ending the hopes of a debate focused solely on climate change. Activists and presidential candidates had long called for a debate on the issue, and one candidate – former Texas representative Beto O'Rourke – called for the decision not to be "disconcerting".

And in a move that, according to Bloomberg, exasperated state party officials, the DNC announced that it had instructed a cybersecurity company to hack its assets in order to test a virtual caucus system to be used during contests in Iowa and other states next year. . The hacking was successful, casting doubt on the reliability of these systems, but state leaders claimed the test was unfair and was a bad indicator of caucus security. Nevertheless, he raised new concerns about cybersecurity in a party that is still unhappy with the leak of a 2016 e-mail that has aroused strong sympathy during the process of appointing this e-mail. campaign.

A debate on climate change will not take place

DNC members voted 222-137 against allowing Democratic presidential candidates to participate in a third-party debate devoted exclusively to climate change, without incurring sanctions from party leaders. Currently, the DNC is closely regulating when and where candidates can debate, and voting has given it the mandate to continue to do so.

If the vote had been reversed, the candidates would have been allowed to "participate in multi-candidate forums on specific topics, with candidates appearing at the same stage and engaging in a discussion". This would have paved the way for debate for # ClimateDebate that environmental groups, including the youth-led Sunrise movement, had pleaded – and that 15 candidates said they would agree to participate.

DNC officials, including President Tom Perez, opposed the resolution. Perez repeatedly reiterated that no issue should prevail over another, and said that a climate debate would unfairly benefit Washington State Governor Jay Inslee. Inslee left the presidential post last week, but has been touted as a unique candidate focused on climate change.

Advocates of a climate debate argued that the issue was serious enough to merit special treatment.

"If an asteroid came to Earth, there would be no doubt that we would have a debate about it," said a member of the DNC, according to the local Mercury News, which covered the meeting. "But with this existential crisis the world is facing, we are all sitting and wringing our hands."

Protesters, many of them from the Sunrise movement, interrupted the committee meeting where the proposal was being considered, chanting: "We can not wait!

Although many Democratic candidates have said they support a climate debate, including Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, most have so far not talked about the committee's vote. On Saturday afternoon, Beto O'Rourke described the decision to vote as "disconcerting" and "alarming":

And Inslee, who is currently running for re-election of the governor, tweeted his support for pro-debate activists:

Activists from groups like the Sunrise Movement and Greenpeace have mobilized for months of climate debate and intensified their activism after the issue of climate change received relatively little attention in the first round of Democratic debate – only fifteen minutes of antenna time in four hours. They argued that voters deserved to know how the candidates would respond to what they considered an existential threat to humanity.

And the voters seem to be in their corner. Climate change has become a major concern for many Democratic voters. And as Vox's Umair Irfan reports, a climate debate would have been an opportunity for voters to get fully involved in the facts around the problem:

Climate change is rarely the subject of a substantive policy discussion in prime time. Voters often do not hear about it on television. A debate asking presidential candidates to determine how they plan to face a warming world would be a public service and help educate voters who may not realize how much a warming world will affect the world. Agriculture, the economy, health and national security.

But as Irfan noted in another report on the issue, the ultimate vote and defeat of the proposal to hold a climate debate reveals a broader conflict between Democratic politicians over the central need to create a climate in their decision-making process:

The discussion on the desirability of holding a debate on climate change is a central issue in a broader debate among democrats on how to tackle climate change. Should it be the centerpiece of policy making or should climate considerations be part of other concerns?

We see this being played out in the way that Inslee's climate strategy compares to that of Warren. In the proposals she has published so far, Warren has addressed the problem of climate change through his plans for public lands, domestic manufacture, and the military.

So, do Democrats really need a climate debate, or can climate change be adequately addressed in other political discussions?

This division eventually led the DNC to vote not to hold a debate on climate change, regardless of the activities of the base and the presidential campaign around the issue.

Hackers create new questions about virtual caucus

The DNC also spent time at its meeting to deal with cyber threats, but seems to have come to some conclusions. The organization's emails were compromised by Russian actors during the 2016 election. She hopes to avoid any interference in her upcoming primaries and caucuses.

To that end, the DNC revealed that it was worried about upcoming virtual caucuses after a cybersecurity firm hired to locate vulnerabilities in its system could hack into its teleconferencing system as well as Democratic Party networks. from Iowa and Nevada, according to the Democratic Party. at Bloomberg News.

Iowa and Nevada both hold caucuses rather than primary elections; the DNC advised all caucus member states that they should use a "virtual caucus" system to make caucus easier – the process of sitting in a room and choosing one's preference for a party candidate – easier for those who can not show up at physical caucus sites, as Eric Kleefeld of Vox wrote:

In previous election cycles, participation in the caucus was limited to those physically present at the local caucus sites. This campaign cycle, however, will allow the party to participate online or by telephone to what is called a "Virtual caucus." Those who will participate in the virtual caucus will decide 10% of the delegates rewarded, 90% of the delegates being chosen by participants in person.

In theory, the virtual caucus should help the party to reach a different type of voter. According to Kleefeld, a month of June Monk's Registry / CNN Poll found that in Iowa, "potential caucus electors currently have lower education levels than potential voters in person" and that "potential virtual caucus enthusiasts are also younger than the participants in person".

However, if the network used for virtual caucuses is compromised, the virtual caucus business is too. According to Bloomberg, states parties should receive approval for their virtual caucus facilities this weekend. The DNC is now using it to dispel internal concerns before the launch of the first caucuses in February.

However, many State Party officials reportedly expressed outrage at the hacking and, as reported by Bloomberg's Tyler Pager, they also expressed frustration with the way the DNC implemented this change from the caucus:

Caucus and state officials have made a litany of complaints: That the DNC have defined the rules for absentee participation without considering how states should achieve this goal; that the DNC has offered little help for the design of a virtual system, what state officials have described as the most important modification of the caucus process since the beginning of modern caucuses in 1972; and have been slow to raise security issues.

Representatives of the State Party also stated that pirated networks were not an adequate medium for the virtual caucus systems that they build; They claim, for example, that their telephone caucuses can only be compared to the teleconference system that the security company has violated.

The DNC has reasons to be concerned about cybersecurity. Since a population of state representatives has been reserved for the winner – or winners – of virtual caucuses, any interference could skew the candidate for the presidency of the Democratic Party.

And security officials, such as former director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, warned that hostile foreign actors would try to meddle in the 2020 elections. In fact, Coats told the Intelligence Committee of the Senate earlier this year that these actors would likely work to influence the competition in ways that we have not yet seen: "We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they go along. mutual experiences. and efforts, "he said.

DNC was quick to strengthen its cyber security concerns; the first caucuses begin in six months. In the meantime, he has good reason to find and correct – or completely eliminate – any potentially vulnerable component of his appointment process.