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Ever Caucused?


BrickStamp

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I've just learned that for the Democratic primary, we have to vote & caucus. So as I understand it, you vote (early or on election day), then return to your precinct the evening of March 4 for the caucus. I'm wondering what happens there. Do we just show up, support our candidate, and leave? Do you have to be here at a particular time? The bottom line is I'm trying to figure out if I need a babysitter, or if the spouse and I can tag-team caucus (that sounds either dangerous or dirty...).

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I caucused in 1988. You have to be inside the polling place when the doors close (6pm or something like that). Then it gets weird. They take a vote of all the people who show up at the caucus and allocate precinct delegates based on that vote. Then, as a group, you pick people who will go to the senatorial district caucus. That was a big event held on a Saturday at a local high school gym. At that, we voted on planks to go into the platform and selected people to go to the state caucus something. I didn't get selected for that part.

It was pretty cool. I was voting in a district that had been almost all white. When I got there, everyone was white and they seemed to know each other. They were all for Dukakis and were figuring out who would go to the senatorial district when at the last minute, a ton of black people came in. (Apparently the district had been gerrymandered to pick up a large, mostly black neighborhood.) All of them had voted for Jesse Jackson, and they outnumbered the Dukakis supporters. As the majority, they got to make all kinds of decisions (like picking me to go to the senatorial district because I was the only white person for Jackson.)

It was fun to watch the party regulars deal with newcomers to the process. At the senatorial caucus, all of the Jackson delegates went down on the floor to select delegates to the next stage. The party officers told us to pick people that accurately represented our demographics, but we decided to pick people who were the least represented. I almost got to go to the next stage, but there was a Jackson delegate who was white and gay, so that trumped my whiteness. The party officials seemed flabbergasted by the whole Jackson thing.

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I caucused in 1988. You have to be inside the polling place when the doors close (6pm or something like that).

How tremendously unfair. I'm working at a polling place different from my own on election day, so will have to vote early. It appears I'm shut out of the caucus process.

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What do you mean we have to? Does that mean my vote in the primary won't count if I don't go to the caucus or something?

Primary votes still count, but caucusing makes it count more. They told me it was like voting twice.

Vote early, vote often.

How tremendously unfair. I'm working at a polling place different from my own on election day, so will have to vote early. It appears I'm shut out of the caucus process.

Check the times. There may be a window between when voting stops and the caucus starts.

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Check the times. There may be a window between when voting stops and the caucus starts.

caucus starts after the election. (7:15 for dems and 8:00 for reps) you can doff your regular clothes and don your candidate garb. here delegates are chosen to go to the county and then state caucuses later in the yr. there are different rules for dems and repubs.

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You can arrive late after the caucus starts (we call them precinct conventions here in Texas). You can not change any business that happened before you arrived. If nonone has arrived at your precinct to start the convention (like your pricinct chairman, you may get the packet from the election judge and start it yourself.

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You can arrive late after the caucus starts (we call them precinct conventions here in Texas). You can not change any business that happened before you arrived. If nonone has arrived at your precinct to start the convention (like your pricinct chairman, you may get the packet from the election judge and start it yourself.

That wasn't how it worked on the Democrat side in 1988. They locked the doors and no one else could get in.

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That wasn't how it worked on the Democrat side in 1988. They locked the doors and no one else could get in.

They were ignorant. The polls close at 7:00PM and the election judge may lock to the doors the election area but at 7:15PM the doors should have been reopenned. You should have reported these uniformed people. The rules are clearly spelled out in the handbook distributed by the Democratic party. I've conducted enough of these to know.

Some people claim to know the rules because "ole so and so" told them so, or "that's the way we've be doin it for years". Don't be afraid to challenge these people.

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A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...... No wait different story, but back in 1980 at the ripe old age of 20 I went to the precinct convention as it is called. I don't think anyone in the party called it a caucus. The precinct judge presided and essentially the main duty was to pick delegates the the Senetorial district convention. My precinct voted at Brookline Elementary and thats where the convention was. First order of business was to essentially find out who there wanted to be a delegate at the next level and then divide those up based on who you supported. Basically if you supported Carter and voted for him in the primary you should not have asked to be a Kennedy delegate. Then based on the outcome of the primary vote for your precinct the delegates were apportioned. IE if you got 10 delegates to the next leve and the vote was 60% Carter, 30% Kennedy and 10% Nader then you needed to choose 6 Carter delegates, 3 Kennedy delegates and 1 Nader delegate. These folks went on to the next level where they talked platform and essentially went through the same process to elect delegates to the state convention. At state where I was a delegate again we went through the same process to elect the Texas delegates to the National Convention. As I recall the discussions at the precinct level were minimal and as soon as the delegates were chosen we went home. The next two levels were where we got into much more discussion on issues and potential platform agendas.

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A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...... No wait different story, but back in 1980 at the ripe old age of 20 I went to the precinct convention as it is called. I don't think anyone in the party called it a caucus. The precinct judge presided and essentially the main duty was to pick delegates the the Senetorial district convention. My precinct voted at Brookline Elementary and thats where the convention was. First order of business was to essentially find out who there wanted to be a delegate at the next level and then divide those up based on who you supported. Basically if you supported Carter and voted for him in the primary you should not have asked to be a Kennedy delegate. Then based on the outcome of the primary vote for your precinct the delegates were apportioned. IE if you got 10 delegates to the next leve and the vote was 60% Carter, 30% Kennedy and 10% Nader then you needed to choose 6 Carter delegates, 3 Kennedy delegates and 1 Nader delegate. These folks went on to the next level where they talked platform and essentially went through the same process to elect delegates to the state convention. At state where I was a delegate again we went through the same process to elect the Texas delegates to the National Convention. As I recall the discussions at the precinct level were minimal and as soon as the delegates were chosen we went home. The next two levels were where we got into much more discussion on issues and potential platform agendas.

From what you're saying, the purpose was just to choose who would be delegate. My understanding was that numbers mattered, too. So a certain percentage of the delegates were apportioned based on the primary vote, but a certain percentage were apportioned based on the caucus. So for example, if none of Obama's supporters showed up in the evening, Clinton would get all of the votes for the delegates apportioned by the caucus.

THese are two very different scenarios. Perhaps I need to contact the party HG for clarification...

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From what you're saying, the purpose was just to choose who would be delegate. My understanding was that numbers mattered, too. So a certain percentage of the delegates were apportioned based on the primary vote, but a certain percentage were apportioned based on the caucus. So for example, if none of Obama's supporters showed up in the evening, Clinton would get all of the votes for the delegates apportioned by the caucus.

I think part of the delegate count comes from the primary vote, another part comes from the caucus attendance. I was told when I voted that showing up for the caucus made my vote count twice. That's probably overly simplistic.

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I think part of the delegate count comes from the primary vote, another part comes from the caucus attendance. I was told when I voted that showing up for the caucus made my vote count twice. That's probably overly simplistic.

heard this explanation on npr the other evening...you will have to listen (i could not find a transcript)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=19211076

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I am thinking about doing it. I am not sure, but I used to think (as a young man growing up) that when you caucused it was like a dance or something and they'd have hay bales stacked up to sit on, punch and stuf (not sure where any of those whacky ideas came from).

But I am really thinking about doing it.

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