Voting Democratic in the Presidential Primary
On Tuesday, February 5, the date of the Massachusetts presidential primary, Democrats and those not enrolled in a party will have a chance to influence who becomes the Democratic candidate for President in November. February 5 is being called “Super Duper Tuesday” because twenty-two states are scheduled to hold Democratic primaries or caucuses then, including states with huge numbers of voters, such as New York and California.
Polls will be open from 7 am to 8 pm. If you don’t know your polling place, visit www.wheredoivotema.com or call your city or town hall. You must have been registered as of January 16 in order to vote in the primary.
If you’ve never voted in a primary before, you’ll find that it’s easy. Just give your name and address at the check-in table. If you’re a registered Democrat, you’ll be given a Democratic ballot. If you’re registered to vote but not enrolled in a party, you may request a Democratic ballot; your party status will remain Unenrolled after you vote.
If you’ve been a regular voter, you won’t need identification. However, if you registered to vote by mail in 2003 or later, you may be required to show identification, which must include your name and the address at which you’re registered to vote, for example, a current driver’s license, photo identification, current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, government check, or other government document showing your name and address.
If you’re not listed on the voter list, you may cast a “provisional ballot.” To do this, you declare that you’re registered in the precinct and provide suitable identification. Later, the election officials will search for records to confirm your voter registration. If your eligibility is confirmed, your ballot will be counted.
The primary ballot – printed before several candidates dropped out – will list the Democratic candidates in the following order:
JOHN R. EDWARDS
HILLARY CLINTON
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR.
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD
MIKE GRAVEL
BARACK OBAMA
DENNIS J. KUCINICH
BILL RICHARDSON
Please note that Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, and Richardson have ended their campaigns – so vote for a candidate who is still running: Edwards, Clinton, Gravel, or Obama.
(You may be surprised to see some local names on the ballot as well. The presidential primary is the means by which your ward or town Democratic committee members are elected to a four-year term. Please vote for them. In a city, ward committee members automatically become members of the city committee.)
The number of votes each candidate receives in the primary election determines the number of pledged delegates the candidate will have at the Democratic National Convention, to be held in late August.
Massachusetts has a total of 121 delegates and 16 alternates. Of those, sixty-one are district-level delegates and ten are district-level alternates, elected at a caucus (i.e. meeting) on April 5. The caucus In the Sixth Congressional District (Congressman John Tierney’s) will elect three men and three women as delegates and one man as alternate.
Our presidential primary is “binding”, which means that delegate and alternate positions are allocated based on the presidential preference of the primary voters in each district. Delegates and alternates selected at the district level are allocated in proportion to the percentage of the primary vote won in that district by each candidate, except that any candidate who does not receive 15% of the primary vote is not awarded any delegates or alternates.
In addition to delegates elected at the district caucuses, Massachusetts will have unpledged delegates who receive a seat at the National Democratic Convention by virtue of their office. These are our ten Democratic National Committee members, ten Democratic U.S. Representatives, two Democratic U.S. Senators, our Democratic Governor, and three “Distinguished Party Leaders”. In addition, we get two unpledged “add-on” delegates and twelve “pledged Party Leader and Elected Official” delegates, twenty at-large delegates and six at-large alternates.
If you’d like to learn how these delegates and alternates are chosen, please see the detailed rules at http://massdems.org/docs/DelegateSelectionPlanRevised.pdf.
Although you’ll hear Democrats passionately arguing now about which Democrat would make the best President, the differences among the Democrats are minuscule compared to the differences between any Democratic candidate and any Republican candidate for President.
The Democratic and Republican parties have very different political philosophies, and the best way to predict a candidate’s deepest values, goals, and future accomplishments is to look at his or her party affiliation. You can be sure that the Democratic nominee – whoever that may be – will be committed to working for the common good.
