For that last couple months, we've been bombarded by news outlets with coverage of the 2016 presidential primary contests. It started with about a month of coverage in Iowa, looking at the how the presidential candidates would fare when the caucuses occurred on February 1. As the first contest of the primary season, Iowa has the potential to shape the rest of the race, so we were all ears, hoping Donald Trump and Ted Cruz would fail, and that Jeb Bush would actually pull through, and that Hillary Clinton would take a victory by a a large margin, none of which actually happened. Then we moved to the primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the caucuses in Nevada. And most recently, we followed the coverage of Super Tuesday on March 1, where 13 states and one territory held their contests. As exciting as the primary season is, it's hard to visualize what these contests look like if you haven't been a part of them before. I could write all dayabout the logistics of how caucuses and primaries work in theories, but often they are just something you have to jump into blindly, because there is no set way that they operate. Sure, they have a structure, but the way that structure is followed varies from precinct to precinct, city to city, county to county, state to state. So for now, here's my account of what the inside of a caucus looks like, from my own personal experience attending my first caucus.
On March 1, 2016, I left my apartment near my university in an hour and a half drive back to my hometown. Nervous and excited at the same time, I threw my hamper in my back seat and my backpack in my front seat and pulled away from the curb. I planned on doing some laundry at my mom's house, and maybe doing some much needed work on my final research papers (quarter system life). I had never been to a caucus before, and I really didn't know what to expect. I had learned about the logistical aspects of the nomination system, as I am a political science major completing my last course in the department, but I had never been on the ground, engaging with this system.The first election I was eligible to vote in was the 2012 presidential election, and I had up until this past summer been registered as unaffiliated, meaning I wasn't registered with a party. Because Colorado caucuses and primaries are closed, I switched my affiliation in June to affiliate with the a party in order to caucus for the candidate I align most with. This was my first opportunity to engage in this facet of the political process.
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I arrived in my hometown around 5:30pm. This was good timing, considering I had gotten out of class at four, and needed to be at the caucusing location by 6:30pm. I stopped by my mom's house first to drop off my laundry, say hello to my pets that I was missing a ton, and to pick up my mom, who is registered with a party. This was also her first caucus, and even though she's been eligible to vote for many years, she didn't actually vote until I started voting. So as a good political science major does, I convinced her to come caucus with me, since we were now both registered with the same party. Looking back on this day, it's pretty funny, seeing as how our votes cancelled each other's out almost, since we each "voted" for a different candidate.
I drove my caucusing location, an elementary school in the older part of our city. It was around 6:30pm, and I was quite shocked to see that there was barely any space in the parking lots. Caucuses are notorious for low turnout rates. They are high cost (I'm not talking about money-related costs) ways of participating, that require a large commitment of time. One usually arrives to a caucus location 30 minutes before the caucus is to begin, and a caucus can take several hours, depending on how competitive the race is. It limits participation by having this high time commitment, limiting the amount of evening workers, parents, and people without personal vehicles, among others, that can participate. I was expecting a higher turnout than usual, but not as many as I ended up seeing that evening. My mom and I got into line to check in, which was quite long, and after we received our precinct number and were checked off the list, we went inside the cafeteria to find the table that was labeled with our precinct number. There were four other precincts at our location other than our precinct, and when we stepped into the cafeteria, we found that all of the seating allotted for our precinct was taken. That was fine, and we didn't mind standing. And though our cafeteria was packed, it wasn't as overflowing as many other locations in Colorado. Several locations had to move people outside, and had standing room only within the location with more people on the outside of the building. The locations were picked based on previous caucus turnouts, and not expecting as many folks as participated in these caucuses, the locations were well past capacity and not conducive to the process, with many folks not being able to have their vote heard or counted. One of the folks at my precinct table told me that the caucus in 2012 only had six people from our precinct; this year, there were 28. Plus, there were all the other folks from the other precincts too, but it could have been worse, as it was in these other cases.
The caucus soon began a little bit after 7pm, starting with the pledge of allegiance. Then, one of the folks running the caucus proceeded to go over the rules of the caucus. Unfortunately, because of the amount of people and the lack of some sort of microphone, no one could hear these rules, especially those in the back of the cafeteria. One of the major details to pay attention to in a caucus is the threshold for a candidate's eligibility to receive delegates. Every caucus has some sort of guideline that a candidate needs x percentage of votes to be eligible to receive delegates. My caucus's threshold was 15%. We then moved on to the person in front reading a letter submitted from a local candidate, and then we voted on who would be the caucus chairperson and the caucus secretary. Nobody wanted to volunteer, so the first two that raised their hands got the roles.
We then split up according to precincts. At our precinct tables, we first had a call for volunteers to speak about the candidates they support, one for each candidate. After the speeches were completed, we took a non-binding preference poll to make sure that the candidates met the threshold of 15 percent by raising our hands. All of the candidates did. Then we proceeded to take a real straw poll of presidential candidate preferences by raising our hands. There was one clear winner -- no coin flips or anything. The vote was 17-11-0, since there were 28 of us. The delegates assigned to the precinct were divided up proportionately, and these delegates would go to the county convention in two weeks, not straight to the Democratic National Convention. Our precinct had seven delegates, so four went to one candidate, and three went to another.
The last order of business was to elect the delegates to the county convention to represent the candidates there. When I first heard about this aspect of the process, prior to my political science coursework, I thought there were specific folks from which to vote. That's not the case. Anyone in the precinct can be a delegate, if they want. We needed four delegates for one candidate and four alternates as well, and three delegates for another candidate. When the call for delegates occurred, nobody raised their hands. Earlier that day, my capstone professor, who's a big-shot political scientist, encouraged all of us caucusing to run to be a delegate. Heeding his advice, I raised my hand. Having never caucused before, I wasn't super confident in my ability to be an effective delegate, but I knew I had my coursework behind me, and apparently my professor believed in us, so I just went for it. I didn't even need to run. I got one spot, because no one else wanted to do it. Reluctant hands soon shot up after, and we eventually filled our delegate and alternate slots. After filling out my delegate sheet, I left, frustrated with the disorganization and inefficiency with the caucus, but kind of in awe about how much my coursework actually prepared me for the caucus, and that I could actually be a delegate to represent a candidate.
My takeaway: the caucus system is so disorganized and inefficient. Also, I don't really like the fact that my caucus had a public vote by raise of hands. Since caucuses are like neighborhood meetings, you are basically being put in a position to be judged by your neighbors, and that is pretty unsettling. I didn't know any of them, but that's not always the case for others. I like secret ballots better because there is little room for peer pressure and influence, and that a vote by one is truly their vote. Though it's an interesting concept, Colorado needs to switch back to the primary system. Colorado started out with the caucus system, but switched to a primary in 1992, then switched back to a caucus in 2004 due to financial reasons. I think it's about time Colorado switches back.
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