When Democrats begin voting next month in party primaries and caucuses in Iowa and New Hampshire, what they will really be doing is selecting delegates. The delegates pledged to each candidate will gather in Boston in July for the Democratic National Convention, and they’ll select the party’s nominee to run against President Bush. So how these delegates are chosen is of more than merely academic interest.

As our Josh Gerstein reported on the front page of yesterday’s New York Sun — and as the tear-out above from Florida’s delegate-selection plan graphically illustrates — the Democrats have embarked on a numerically painstaking effort to assure that the make-up of the various state convention delegations mirrors the racial make-up of the Democratic electorate in each state, right down to the percentage point. Some states have also set goals for numbers of gay, disabled, or Arab-American delegates, or those younger than 35.

The system has come under criticism from several prominent Democrats, including a lawyer for President Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, Philip Friedman, who told the Sun, “When you focus on the head count instead of the people, that’s when I have a problem with it.” Mayor Koch called the goals “an outrage” and “a big mistake.”

When goals are that specific, then race or sexual orientation or disability have the potential to overshadow other matters — like stances on issues or hard work on behalf of the party. There are problems with line-drawing. Gays and lesbians get 20 Florida delegates, but there’s no set-aside for bisexuals or the transgendered. Where do Jews fit in? How is race determined?

We don’t mind saying that we can see the magnificence of America’s diversity. We do not belittle efforts designed to ensure that bigotry not have a purchase in any party. But an approach like the Democrats’ leaves voters to wonder how a party that runs its own affairs this way would have the nation’s colleges allocate seats, or have the nation’s benches filled. Do delegates have to self-identify or does a presidential campaign make its best guess at a racial identification based on a visual assessment?

The Republicans, of course, have their own identity politics problem — they lag behind the Democrats at attracting women and black voters. It’d be healthier for both parties and for America if they made their appeals on the basis of things that Americans of all races can agree on, like economic growth and a strong defense, rather than on the basis of categories that in this context seem calculated to divide rather than unite.