The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) began accepting requests on Wednesday for the mail-in ballots it will use for the presidential candidate preference part of its 2024 caucus. The new mail-in vote replaces the in-person selection process at precinct caucus meetings. The in-person part of the 2024 Iowa Caucus on Jan. 15 will be devoted to making decisions about party business. The selection of the party’s choice for president will be conducted entirely through the mail-in process, with the preference cards functioning as absentee ballots.
Registered Democrats can request preference cards online, or print out a request form to mail in. Requests will be accepted through Feb. 19, 2024. Preference cards will be mailed out starting on Jan. 12, 2024, three days before the in-person caucus. To be considered valid, a mail-in preference card must be returned by March 5. Results will be announced on the night of March 5.
“I’m excited to officially begin our 2024 Iowa Caucus process,” IDP Chair Rita Hart said in a written statement emailed to reporters on Wednesday. “We’re committed to making this the most inclusive Iowa caucus in history. Iowans who work a third shift, families that may not have access to childcare, or seniors who are homebound can now make their voices heard in our presidential process.”
Lack of inclusivity caused by not having an absentee voting option was one of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) primary criticisms of the previous caucus process, and one of the reasons the DNC removed Iowa from the first-in-the-nation position it had held since 1972. It was far from the only criticism, and addressing it with the new mail-in procedure will not cause the DNC to give Iowa a position in the early voting period of the 2024 presidential primary. Like other states, Iowa will have to wait until the general voting period begins on March 5 to submit its results.
March 5 is Super Tuesday, and Democratic parties in 13 other states will hold primaries that day. Many of those states are more important in terms of delegates than Iowa, which has 46. Super Tuesday states include California (497 delegates), Texas (272 delegates), North Carolina (132 delegates), Virginia (118 delegates), Massachusetts (116 delegates) and Minnesota (92 delegates).
The IDP State Central Committee will decide which candidates will be listed on the preference cards at its Dec. 2 meeting. President Biden is not currently facing any serious competition, but there are candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
Marianne Williamson, a spiritual advisor and bestselling author, is making her second run for the Democratic nomination. She launched a run in November 2018, but dropped out of the race the month before the 2020 Iowa Caucus. Williamson has done very little campaigning this cycle, but spoke at the Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair this summer.
Political commentator Cenk Uygur announced last month he is running for the nomination, but so far he has only filed paperwork to be on the ballot in Nevada. Uygur’s application was rejected by the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office, because Uygur was born in Turkey to parents who were not citizens of the United States, and the U.S. Constitution states “No Person except a natural born Citizen” can serve as president. Uygur claims that requirement is unconstitutional even though it is in the Constitution.
Last week, Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips announced he is running for president. Phillips has represented the western suburbs of the Twin Cities in Congress since 2019. Prior to that, he was the CEO of his family’s distillery, and also ran a gelato company.
In its statement on Wednesday, the IDP said it hired Amber McReynolds to administer its mail-in voting. McReynolds is the principal and founder of Strategy/Rose, a Denver, Colorado-based consulting firm. She was also a founder of the National Vote at Home Institute, and served as the nonpartisan nonprofit’s first CEO from August 2018 to December 2021. Prior to that, McReynolds served for seven years as the Director of Elections for the City and County of Denver. In 2021, President Biden appointed McReynolds to the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service. McReynolds is not a member of the Democratic Party. She lists her political affiliation as “independent.”
“It’s important to me that this process runs smoothly and that’s why we’re excited to partner with Amber and her team, which has a combined 50 years of election administration experience,” Hart said in her statement. “With their guidance, we’re creating a process that has safeguards in place to ensure we verify the information of those who want to participate, while at the same time opening up our caucuses to more people than ever before.”
