The Register was remiss this week in not reporting the results of last Saturday’s Democratic primary.
Joe Biden won, of course.
With Bernie Sanders having dropped out of the race on April 8, Biden faced no credible opposition.
Even so, the primary was notable for several reasons, including:
• It was conducted solely by mail-in ballots;
• It featured ranked-choice voting, and
• It shows how the general election in November should be held.
Biden won 77% against Sanders’s 23% of the votes cast by about 146,873 Democrats. Party organizers mailed about 400,000 ballots to registered Democrats, a response rate just shy of 35%.
Democratic Party leaders said they were extremely happy with the turnout. In the 2016 Democratic primary, a tad more than 39,000 Kansans bothered to vote. A dismal 8.72% turnout.
Wow.
Republicans weren’t any better in the 2016 contest. In their crowded primary race of seven, fewer than 9% voted. Ted Cruz won handily, 48%, with Donald Trump coming in a distant second, 23%, followed by Marco Rubio, John Kasich and the others.
This election year, Kansas Republicans decided to forego a primary, their allegiance to President Donald Trump is so unified.
Republican or Democrat, we need to do better at voting. Compared to just about every other Western nation, the United States is among the bottom in voter turnout.
Considering how much power our presidents hold, you’d think it would be our utmost priority.
With the COVID-19 pandemic still holding the country in its grip, Democrats wisely eschewed their caucus format in favor of the mail-in voting system.
It went without a hitch.
Ballots were mailed on March 30, and again for April 7 for those who registered in the interim.
By using the ranked voting system, voters ranked candidates in descending order of preference.
In Saturday’s case Biden and Sanders were the only two candidates to cross the 15% threshold to remain a viable candidate. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard, who have also dropped out of the race, were in the single digits. The process also helped determine how delegates were alloted. Biden received 29 delegates, pushing his total to 1,435, and Sanders, 10, putting him at 984.
