Photo by Andy Kelly on Unsplash

As a requirement to appear at the January 14th debate, Democratic Presidential candidates must have polled at 5% or more in at least 4 national polls or at 7% or more in at least 2 early state polls. Presumably when this requirement was written, the Democratic National Committee, led by former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, thought through the implications of excluding many candidates polling at 0–4%. There must have been a discussion about how such a requirement could alienate a large portion of Democratic voters. Someone in the room must have done the math and looked at previous polls or at least done some sort of simulation when they realized how many candidates were running. Nope.

Before we get into Andrew Yang’s request to the DNC, let’s just look at some recent polls and calculate the percentage of people polled that are effectively being ignored. Let’s just look at the last 10 polls listed on the Real Clear Politics website. There are currently only 5 candidates that have qualified for the January 14th debate. So, if we add up the percentages that those 5 candidates got in the polls, we will be able to figure out how many of the people polled are being ignored. This is going to blow your mind and make you more than a little bit cynical about our “democratic” process.

10 Most Recent Polls Illustrating 18%-39% Ignored

You may be looking at this table and thinking to yourself, “There is no way the DNC is ignoring between 19% and 39% of the people being polled.” But it is true. Every one of the last 10 polls show that between 18% and 39% of people polled are either undecided or will not have their first choice for President on stage in January.

UNLESS.

Enter Andrew Yang. In a leaked memo to the DNC, Andrew Yang asked to increase the number of qualifying polls put out into the field before the January debate. Why would Andrew Yang ask for more qualifying polls? Could it be because he had a stellar performance in the December debate? Could it be because he is the only remaining candidate of color represented in the top 6? Could it be because there were no qualifying polls over the holidays? Or, maybe Andrew Yang just wants to confirm that the DNC’s leadership is human.

Andrew Yang is of course asking for more qualifying polls, because he wants to qualify for the January debate. But it is also clear that he doesn’t want the DNC’s process and a very obviously biased media machine to undermine our democracy before the first votes are cast. In this situation, it is obvious what the human leader of the Democratic National Committee would do. A human leader would change the originally prescribed process to make sure that 18% to 39% of voters are not being ignored. But, is Tom Perez a human or is he a robot?

We know exactly what a robot would do in this situation — follow the rules. No matter what the requirement says, a robot would never let the process deviate from the original plan. Maybe this is just part of what Andrew Yang predicted. The Presidential nomination process for the Democratic Party has become automated.

What do you think? Should we have more qualifying polls before the January debate?