The Arizona Democratic Party has published a first draft of the “Arizona Delegate Selection Plan for the 2020 Democratic National Convention.” The forty-three page document is currently on the ADP website and the ADP is accepting public comment until June 1. The Arizona Plan is subject to rules of the national party, which can be found here.
Following the comment period and appropriate changes, the Plan will be approved by the ADP Executive Board for submission to the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. Approval of that committee is required before implementation of Arizona’s Plan.
Arizona has a total of 79 delegates and 6 alternates to the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in Milwaukee, WI on July 13-16, 2020.
Arizona will use a proportional representation system for choosing delegates, based upon the results of the Presidential Preference Election (PPE), which will be held March 17, 2020. The process is open to all voters who chose to participate as Democrats; the deadline to register to vote as a Democrat in the PPE is February 18, 2020.
As part of encouraging participation in the delegate selection process by all registered voters, ADP and the Coconino County Democratic Party have prioritized expanding the Democratic electorate by registering new voters, encouraging no party preference voters (aka “Independents”) to become Democrats, and signing up voters to receive ballots in the mail as part of the Permanent Early Voting List.
The PPE is a “binding” primary, which means that delegate positions shall be allocated to reflect the Presidential Preferences expressed by the voters in the PPE. Forty-four of Arizona’s 79 delegates are “District Level” delegates, who will be selected at party caucuses on April 18, 2020, following the PPE. The delegate selection process is complex and we suggest that those interested in being delegates or in participating in the selection process for delegates read the document. Furthermore, we have in our county experienced delegates who will be available to talk about the process with those who are interested in running. Please contact us if you would like to have such a conversation.
Congressional District 1 will have 5 of the 44 delegates, two of whom will be men and three of whom will be women. (Statewide, there will be 22 men and 22 women.)
In addition to the 44 District-Level Delegates to the DNC Convention, Arizona is alloted 35 Automatic Delegates, also known as “uncommitted” or “super” delegates. These are Congressmen and other elected officials and certain party leaders as specified in the Arizona Plan. Under a new rule adopted by the Democratic National Committee in August 2018, these Automatic Delegates are not permitted to vote on the first ballot of the Presidential nominating process at the Democratic National Convention. (See Call for Convention, p. 13, Rule 7.b.) In essence, this means that voters in state primaries (like Arizona’s PPE) and the caucus-goers in remaining few caucus states will choose the Presidential nominee unless the results of those voter-controlled contests are so close as to result in a divided convention.
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