The Colorado Caucus Experience
Feb 8th, 2008 by nick
Although I still think the format is discriminatory, I enjoyed the novel experience of participating in a caucus last Tuesday evening. Sonja and I recruited her parents to baby-sit so that we could both attend our caucus at a local middle-school. Not knowing how many people would show up, we were pleasantly surprised to find the parking lot almost full. However, it turned out there was a basketball game going on in the gym, so not all the cars were there for the caucus.
Upon finding the school library where the caucuses were to be held, the first thing we noticed was the overwhelming support for Barack Obama, in the form of signs, pins, stickers, T-shirts, etc. I didn’t see a single piece of Hillary Clinton campaign material the entire night. I wasn’t too surprised, as described in my previous post explaining why Obama does better than Clinton in caucuses.
Next, we discovered that seven different precincts were meeting at the school. We didn’t know our precinct number, but luckily people were on hand with lists of voter names and precinct numbers. We found our precinct right at seven pm, when the caucus was supposed to start, and joined the fourteen other voters (and one kid observing) sitting around a table. This table was in a large room in which three other precincts were meeting. Because of previous apathy, only two of the seven precincts at this location had precinct captains present as official Democratic Party officials. Those two captains had to bounce from precinct to precinct guiding us through the process, which slowed it down somewhat.
The voting itself was simple. We first took a straw poll to determine candidate viability. A candidate had to garner at least 15% of the vote to remain in the race in that particular precinct. With sixteen voters in our precinct, each candidate needed at least three voters for viability. There were only three votes for Clinton (two of which were from Sonja and me), giving her the minimum number of votes to maintain viability. All thirteen other voters supported Obama. If there had not been enough votes to keep Clinton in the race, those of us who supported her in the straw poll would have been required to vote for Obama, abstain, or leave. In another precinct, the sole person who supported Clinton actually left at this point.
Next there was an opportunity for anyone to speak on behalf of the candidates, which no one in our precinct did. Then we took the final vote, which was the same as the straw poll: Thirteen for Obama and three for Clinton.
The final step was to determine delegates to the county convention. Delegates are awarded proportional to the candidate support. Our precinct is allowed six delegates, presumably based on the population in the precinct. Based on the voting tallies, that worked out to one delegate for Clinton and five for Obama. As one of only three Clinton supporters, I volunteered to be the Clinton delegate, which means I have to attend the El Paso county convention on February 23. I have no idea what to expect there, or even what my role as a delegate will be. In fact, I don’t even know if I’m obligated to vote for Clinton or could switch my vote to Obama if I wanted. It should be in interesting experience.
Also, I should note that the whole caucus process took only an hour, and in fact would have been even quicker if there had been more Democratic Party officials present.