When my wife and I went to vote last Tuesday, the polling station was nearly empty. One of the election workers told me it was the least busy election she’d ever seen, and as a political junkie, that did make me a little sad. Not sad enough to wish things had been entirely different, though.
Not that the results of the first state-wide presidential primary held in more than 30 years covered Kansas voters with glory.
Overall, barely over 8% of all registered Democrats in the whole state participated, with the Republicans doing only slightly better, with not quite 11% turning out. Cleary, Kansas voters weren’t fired up by the choices available to them.
But then, no one expected them to be. President Biden and Donald Trump had already secured more than enough delegates to win their parties’ presidential nominations. So what substantive reason was there to participate, anyway? Why did my wife and I, along with thousands of others?
First, because the substantive results aren’t the whole story; sometimes, voters have symbolic goals in mind.
Some Republicans wanted to run up Trump’s totals as show of support in the midst of all his legal penalties and controversies. (He received 75% of the Republican vote, which wasn’t a record.)
And some Democrats cast protest votes as a way of communicating their disapproval of some of Biden’s policy choices. (About 10% of Democrats chose “None of these names”; Biden won 84%.)
But second, there is also the civic value of the procedure itself.
True, the civic process of this primary election was pretty tame. Some, including Gov. Laura Kelly, have talked wistfully about how they prefer the “energy and excitement” of the caucus system of selecting presidential delegates, with voters and activists and party leaders crowding into rooms at an appointed date and time, arguing and yelling, sometimes literally pulling on one another as supporters of different candidates line up and get counted.
I attended the Democratic presidential caucuses in Kansas in 2008 and 2016, and the Kansas Republican caucus in 2012, and I agree — the level of engagement on display there is appealing.
But with blocks of voters shouting down their opponents, making the halls that parties rent out to handle the crush of voters who show up confusing and cacophonous, the process is alienating as well — and not good for those who are in the minority, yet still have a symbolic stand they wish to take.
In truth, caucuses emerged in the context of a more rural and spatially intact political environment; for all the direct democracy caucuses supposedly provide, in our more divided and urban social contexts, allowing for simple voting in a statewide primary makes more sense.
Except, of course, that if it comes down to just casting a ballot for a preferred candidate, you’re only going to get a large turnout if the results are expected to have an impact.
Moving the Kansas primary earlier in the election year calendar would make some difference; adding our state to the 16 others that vote on Super Tuesday, inching the country closer to an unofficial nation-wide presidential primary, might make even more.
Either way, though, I was glad for this primary, and I hope the legislature will organize it again in four years’ time. True, a straight-up primary vote isn’t an exciting, participatory democratic process, and this year was especially predictable. But giving citizens broadly the chance to democratically express themselves doesn’t have to be exciting; sometimes, it just needs to be.
