Iowa Caucus 2020: Why the news of today is a big contract

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But you would be wrong. Let me tell you why.

The decision of the Democratic National Committee means, in the most basic terms, that Iowa's plan to organize "virtual" caucuses by telephone – a measure aimed at increasing the number of people who can participate – does not will not work. Why? Due to concerns, particularly following the Russian hacking of DNC's email servers by Russia in 2016, the fact of telephoning it, in the literal sense, could create a very real possibility of falsifying votes. (Iowa has proposed the virtual caucus to meet the DNC's requirement that every state that holds a caucus must put in place some kind of postal voting process to allow people who can not not appear in person to participate.)

Take a step back. The main difference between a caucus (like Iowa) and a primary (such as New Hampshire) is as follows: in a caucus, people must report to a designated place, group themselves according to the candidate that they prefer, then put pressure on others whose candidates do not have enough support to import. In primary school, you go to your designated polling place, vote and go out.

The caucus takes a lot longer. And this time commitment is a significant barrier for people who may not be able to miss work or have the physical ability to travel to caucus.

All of this is important because, to date, the Iowa caucuses are only in 157 days old. Which is not very long!

Now, it is quite possible for the Iowa Democrats to find a way to fix their caucus plan to the satisfaction of the DNC well before the big day. But to assume that this will happen does not take into account a very important factor: New Hampshire.

You see, New Hampshire REALLY likes having the first primary of the country. The state likes it so much that it has allowed its secretary of state to move the main date whenever he deems it necessary to preserve the first rank status of the state. # 39; State. (The New Hampshire primary is currently scheduled for February 11th.)

The most obvious solution to solving the problem of Iowa's virtual caucus is to commemorate the votes cast by telephone on a paper ballot. Which, according to New Hampshire, is starting to make Iowa caucuses look like a primary. Which means that the door is at least slightly open to the possibility that New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner will be able to get the state primary before the Feb. 3 caucuses in the US. Iowa believes that the eventual solution proposed by the Hawkeye State is too much of a major solution. .

And the order is important: if New Hampshire passed first, the calculation of the race could be fundamentally changed. Candidates who spent a lot of time and energy in Iowa understood that nothing escaped them, because what would happen in New Hampshire would have a huge impact on the vote in Iowa.

New Hampshire Democratic Party President Ray Buckley told CNN on Friday that he and his party remained "intent on protecting the first in the national primary," but were convinced that the problem would be solved.

To be clear: we are not there yet! The DNC has set September 13 as the deadline for approving all plans to meet its postal voting requirements in caucus states.

But the Democrats of Iowa are currently caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

On one side, the mandate of the DNC is to find a way to give voters the opportunity to vote if they can not go to a caucus site – and the DNC's refusal to do so by phone without going through paper routes to document the votes.

On the other side, they have New Hampshire, which considers any paper vote as a primary subject and could change its own primary response.

Can Iowa and the DNC find a way to get through this grove? Sure! But there is no quick and easy solution. And the caucuses of Iowa are only in five months.

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