Today, the DNC held its quarterly meeting in Chicago, where we reaffirmed one of our core beliefs as Democrats: That our democracy works best when every person’s voice is heard.

We passed the strongest reforms to our party in decades, and I wanted to share some of the highlights with you:

  • Our North Star from the beginning of this process has been to grow our party, unite our party, and earn the trust of committed Democrats like you. That’s why we’ve taken the historic step of dramatically reducing the influence that superdelegates have over our presidential nominating process. Now superdelegates will refrain from voting on the first presidential nominating ballot, unless a candidate has already passed the threshold to secure the nomination. This change empowers the grassroots and respects the will of voters.
  • To make the presidential nominating process more inclusive, transparent, and accessible to participants of all backgrounds, the DNC voted to expand the use of primaries so that more people could participate in the process. Primaries are more accessible for many voters, including seniors, shift-workers, students, members of the military, parents of young children, and people with disabilities. And we know our democracy works best when more people can participate, not fewer.
  • For states with caucuses, our reforms recommend that those states take steps to make their caucuses as accessible as possible, including offering absentee voting for voters who can’t make the caucus in person and implementing better processes for tracking ballots in case a recount is needed.
  • Democrats are doing all we can to make sure that every eligible voter can exercise their constitutional right at the ballot box. That’s why we’re encouraging all states to offer same-day voter registration and the ability to register as a Democrat to vote in Democratic primaries.

I say this a lot, but I’ll say it again because it’s true: The new DNC is doing things differently.

These changes are all about the future. They’re about growing our party, increasing participation in our democracy, and putting Democrats in the best possible position to win in November and beyond. I’m proud of the steps we’ve taken this year to rebuild our infrastructure from the ground up. We’ve made unprecedented investments in technology, state parties, grassroots organizers, and voter protection efforts. We’re building the infrastructure Democrats will need to succeed in 2018, take back our democracy from Donald Trump in 2020, and win elections up and down the ballot for years to come. You should be proud too, Angela. Because we’re building this party together.

Thanks for standing with Democrats,

Tom

Tom Perez
Chair
Democratic National Committee