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Caucuses are different than straight secret ballot
primary voting—at least for the Democrats.
The Republican caucuses do cast a secret ballot
and apportion delegates to the state convention
that way. The Democratic process is more of a headache
and yet has an interesting twist to it—it
includes second choices as well as first choices.
But it isn’t quite as simple as ranking the
candidates based on your preference.
The Iowa caucuses are held January 3rd, at 6:30
PM. Everything happens in a group and out in the
open—so you not only have to know who you
support, you have to be willing to say so to others.
Each precinct will have a precinct captain for
each candidate on the ballot. The captains will
make their pitch for their candidate, and then
all caucusgoers will line up with the candidate
of their choice. This is called ‘alignment.’
Confused yet?
To make it past the first round, a candidate
must earn 15% of the delegates present. All the
candidates who don’t get to 15% drop out—and
the voters who chose those candidates have to
decide to align themselves with another candidate
who did make the cut, or go home. The delegates
are then apportioned to the top two candidates
by the percentage of people aligned with them.
Yes, it sounds complicated. It takes up several
hours of your time, and you have to actually talk
to people. This means that even fewer people turn
up in caucus states than do for primaries. Those
who do tend to be older, more well-off, and more
educated.
On the plus side, the caucus system provides
for real political conversation among people.
It gets them involved in a way that just voting
by secret ballot does not. And most importantly,
it allows voters to show their support for the
candidate they truly care about and not have to
worry about being a spoiler, because if their
first choice doesn’t make the cut, they
can choose again. It’s kind of like an instant
runoff.
Why should you care about caucuses? If you live
in Iowa, Nevada, Alaska, Idaho, New Mexico, North
Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Wyoming,
D.C., American Samoa, Puerto Rico, or Kaffeine
Buzz’s home state of Colorado, caucuses
are how your state chooses its presidential candidate.
Iowa’s are the first in the nation, and
John Kerry’s victory in the Democratic caucus
in Iowa in 2004 set the tone for his sweeping
victories nationwide.
Those 57 delegates may not be enough to win an
election, but with states moving their primaries
earlier and earlier, the parties are looking to
have their candidate chosen well before their
August and September conventions. For all intents
and purposes, the candidates will be known after
the February 5th “Super Tuesday” primaries.
So, unfortunately, if your state votes after February
5th, your primary vote doesn’t count for
much.
Primary Guide - http://2008electionprocon.org/?gclid=CNvf5ZaQ1pACFSF4lgod7loMWA
Table on candidates and where they stand:
http://www.2decide.com/table.htm
*Michigan and Florida moved their primaries ahead
of the February 5th date without permission from
the Democratic National Committee and were stripped
of their delegates to the convention. This may
not have been a good move by the Democrats, as
especially Florida is a pivotal state in the presidential
election next November.
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