To the Editor:

In the article “Early Missteps Seen as a Drag on Bernie Sander’s Campaign” (April 3) Patrick Healy and Yamiche Alcindor discuss how Senator Sanders’s lack of campaigning in 2015 has hindered his success in early Democratic primaries. However, his missteps have not been limited only to the early part of his campaign. Sanders has won seventeen states thus far, the majority of which hold caucuses and not primary elections. Caucuses tend to favor candidates with extremely enthusiastic supporters, something Sanders has in droves. His campaign has thus been able to exploit the caucus system to their benefit. However, with only two Democratic caucuses remaining, the question remains whether or not this strategy of relying on the devoted base will work in states which use primary elections to assign electoral delegates.

Caucuses, one of the systems used during presidential primaries to select candidates, ought to be abandoned. Caucuses are the original system of American voting, a holdover from the days when land-owning white men, many of whom did not have professions, were the only Americans with the right to vote. Today the caucus system continues to discourage participation from working-class voters. Caucuses take hours, and a participant needs to be present the whole time. A low-wage worker, someone who works multiple jobs, or a parent without access to childcare can easily spend a few minutes casting a ballot at a local polling station. However many of them cannot afford to clear their schedules and devote a whole day to caucusing.

Although Senator Sanders often speaks of his desire to improve conditions for blue-collar workers, he has focused on campaigning to Millennials worried about college costs and retirees worried about their pensions and Social Security. Sanders’s rallies provide soundbites for the Internet generation, but he’s neglected the kind of small-time, face-to-face campaigning that tends to be popular with working-to-middle-class voters. These people often cannot participate in caucuses, but they vote. Unless Sanders’s campaign strategy changes, many of those votes won’t go to him.