Caucuses? Caucous? Caocus? Pretty sure it's not caulkus. Or cockus.
Whatever.
I have never been involved in a political caucus before, but today I participated in the Washington state caucuses. It was really, really amazing!
Washington state has both a primary and a caucus. Beloved and I got our ballots for the primary by mail, but we both actually threw them away! On purpose. If you want to vote in the Republican primary, you have to sign something that says you are officially a Republican, and we didn't want to do that. (We'd like to think we're independent.) Plus, the Republican party only uses the primary to assign 51% of their delegates. The Democratic party assigns absolutely none of their delegates based on the primary results. I do not understand the reasons for how either party organizes this, but it was apparent that if we wanted to have a voice, it would have to be through the caucus system.
I dutifully found the website that showed me what precinct we're in, and where the caucus would be held. I gave myself plenty of time to get there, because I wasn't sure exactly where it was or exactly what time I had to be signed in.
Well, it was a good thing to be early, because it was packed. Packed! When the official meeting started, the lady with the microphone said they had planned for twice as many people as the previous maximum attendance, but ended up with SIX TIMES as many people!
I teared up during the Pledge of Allegiance. People clapped and cheered.
Having been through it once now, I am much more likely to participate again. I learned a lot. For example, the number of delegates for each candidate ends up being determined by a formula with the ratio of votes per candidate combined with the population of each precinct.
Depending on where you live and how many other people from your area vote, the presence or absence of just a few people... or even one person... can change the number of delegates for each candidate.
So, hello?!?! If you have not yet heard this message loud and clear from any of a thousand different sources, figure out how the process works where ever you live and participate!
It was interesting to see the demographics of everyone there (well, just the visual demographics, I suppose). There were lots of people in their 50s and a surprising number of people in their early 20s. There were definitely not many people with children there. Beloved stayed home with the boys today, because we didn't know what the environment or the process would be like. But next time, we will either find a babysitter or just take the kids with us.
I think it is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful that so many came, but it created some problems. There were SO many people that it was almost standing room only. People had trouble finding the assigned areas for their precincts. There were not enough chairs. It was hard to hear.
One thing that was really sad to me was that some people didn't get to participate because they came too late. The parking lot was completely full and people had to park up to two blocks away. A few people who normally would have been right on time ended up having to park farther away, then had trouble finding their precinct table because of the crowd, and didn't get signed in before the start of the caucus, even though the officials waited until absolutely the last possible minute. I don't know how that could have been prevented. I have not seen any articles this evening about record turn out overwhelming the capacity of the caucus sites around Washington state, so maybe it was just our area.
Are you bored with a whole post about caucuses?
I generally like to follow politics just sort of out of the corner of my eye. If I pay too much attention, it can really frustrate and upset me. Perhaps that's a cop out, but sometimes I feel like I can't emotionally afford to care too much about everything single thing that is important. It can easily overwhelm me. But I am finding myself reading articles about the presidential race and the individual candidates a lot lately. Where do you find objective and relevant information? Right now I tend to just click through AP news articles, but nothing is really too deep.
I'm kind of nervous and kind of excited.
