Shaw: North Dakota needs a presidential primary

It’s time to get rid of North Dakota’s presidential caucuses and transfer to a main system. The principle causes need to do with an absence of voting stations, voting hours and the delay in counting the votes. On the Democratic Social gathering aspect, which was the one get together final time round to have a contested presidential nomination, there have been solely 14 polling places all through North Dakota, these polling places didn’t open till 11 a.m. and the votes weren’t totally counted till the subsequent day.

All you needed to do is have a look at Cass County to see what a logistical fiasco the caucuses have change into. Cass County, the state’s largest, with a inhabitants of about 185,000, had precisely one polling place for the contested Democratic presidential race. That was in Fargo on the Labor Temple constructing. There was no parking and voters needed to stand exterior within the chilly climate for greater than an hour to solid their ballots. Voter attitudes had been mainly good, however many had been late getting again to work or needed to miss their school lessons. Others seemed on the lengthy strains, realized they couldn’t wait that lengthy and left.

Some will argue that the voters may have prevented the strains by voting early by mail. The issue is, a lot of the candidates dropped out earlier than caucus day, so when you voted by mail, you may need wasted your vote by voting for somebody out of the race.

The Fargo caucus additionally had the potential for fraud. New voters didn’t have to indicate any identification to show who they’re. For all we all know, there may have been a 16-year-old from Kentucky voting in Fargo. For that matter, that 16-year-old, utilizing a distinct phony identify, may have then pushed to Grand Forks and voted once more.

It’s time for the federal government to run our presidential nominating elections, not the political events. Meaning holding primaries. That must be accepted by the North Dakota Legislature.

Caucuses have gotten dinosaurs. North Dakota is one among solely 4 states that also have them. Many states in recent times have switched from caucuses to primaries, together with Minnesota, which had complicated and prolonged caucuses in 2016. Minnesota’s 2020 main was far more environment friendly, and voter turnout nearly tripled.

North Dakota wants a stand-alone presidential main. It truly had one in 1996, when Bob Dole was the Republican winner. In any other case, North Dakota ought to mix its state main with a presidential main and maintain it in March. There can be no additional value to taxpayers and there can be roughly 424 voting places. The state truly did this in June of 1992, and the turnout was a powerful 147,000. The 2020 turnout for each events was simply 16,400.

I’m very sorry to listen to of the current passing of former longtime Fargo educator Warren Gullickson, who was the principal at Ben Franklin and Discovery Center Colleges. Warren’s monumental dedication and enthusiasm in direction of training was infectious.

Shaw is a former WDAY TV reporter and former KVRR TV information director.

This column doesn’t essentially replicate the opinion of The Discussion board’s editorial board nor Discussion board possession.