...on handwritten paper or by voice vote! In every other voting process--the primaries, the general elections--the votes are counted by electronic machines which contain 'TRADE SECRET' programming code, owned and controlled by a handful of PRIVATE corporations, at least one of which (ES&S which bought out Diebold) has far rightwing connections that would make your hair stand on end!
Even in states like Oregon, which have paper ballots and do all-mail-in voting, they scan those ballots on 'TRADE SECRET code scanners which feed the now substanceless vote (mere electrons) to 'TRADE SECRET' code tabulators.
The vote counting process is NO LONGER conducted IN THE PUBLIC VENUE--except in caucuses.
Is THAT why Sanders does so incredibly well in caucuses, compared to primaries?
Maddow parrots the "talking point" of many Clinton supporters that caucuses are undemocratic. I think there is more behind this "talking point" than mere dislike of caucuses because Sanders has won so many of them by such big margins.
There are other factors in caucuses--for instance, enthusiasm and willingness to sacrifice your time. Sanders supporters believe in their candidate enough to show up (some Clinton supporters have not even done that) and to spend time talking about Sanders, persuading people and engaging the process in every way.
Sanders himself mentions the democratic value of meeting and discussing. I've read a number of accounts of caucus participants who are very proud of that democratic value. It is traditional for people in those states to meet and discuss and vote in smallish neighborhood groups. They love it! It is real, down-home, town hall democracy! Participatory democracy!
But to me, as a long-time, staunch opponent of the corporate PRIVATIZATION of our vote counting process, what I most value in caucuses is the transparency of the vote counting--that it occurs in the PUBLIC VENUE, where anybody can tell immediately if the count is wrong.
The worst thing about the 'TRADE SECRET' code privatization is that half the states in this country--including most of the South--do NO AUDIT WHATSOEVER (comparison of paper ballots to electronic results) because they have no paper ballot, and the other half do a miserably inadequate audit (not a big enough sample to detect fraud). And all states make getting a recount really difficult.
These evil machines were spread like a plague across this country during the 2002 to 2004 period. I believe that they were first used in a major way in 2004, to re-s/elect Bush and Cheney and their war.
I also think that this 'TRADE SECRET' code--code that the public is forbidden by law to review--can be used in various ways, both blunt ways and sophisticated ways; that this is why exit polls so often fail in this country (while in other countries exit polls are the "gold standard" for determining the integrity of an election); that the 'TRADE SECRET' code can be defeated by overwhelming turnout (or at least make fraudsters hesitate); and that there are varying degrees of protection, depending on the intelligence, honesty and computer savvy of secretaries of state and other election officials.
I think CA is in pretty good shape. OR and WA are in pretty good shape. I think NY might actually be in pretty good shape--because the fraudsters had to use voter purges and closed polling locations to fiddle the vote. Alert election officials can take measures to prevent the insertion of malicious code and other evils, but I'm sorry to say that ALL election officials in this country have succumbed to the glitz and to the alleged "efficiency" of these systems.
In Germany, they count paper ballots by hand in each neighborhood, and have NEVER had a slip-up between the exit polls and the count, and they do it all in one day, very efficiently. It's just not instant. But who cares about "instant" results that are NOT verifiable? Who?
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