So I know you're asking, "Wait a minute, you're living in California. How could your have participated in the Nevada Caucus?" The answer is quite simple: I'm in the military and can maintain my home residency, including voter registration, where I grew up. In my case, that is Las Vegas. Since you must actually attend the caucus in order to have any say, I decided to go ahead and drive the four hours to my old stomping grounds. Since my wife has a friend who just recently moved to Las Vegas that she hadn't seen in years, this trip ended up working out for the whole family.
The caucus itself started at 9:00 am on Saturday at my old high school (I should probably call it my new high school since it has changed so much with new construction; I could hardly recognize it.) Everyone met in the cafeteria to sign in and gather as precincts. All was organized by 9:30 when we split off into different classrooms to caucus within our own precinct.
Once on our own we elected a precinct Captain (turned out to be pretty easy since we simply let the person who organized us in the cafeteria remain the Captain) and while we were supposed to elect a precinct secretary, there were so few of us (14 in all) we just let it slide and the Captain mostly took care of those duties. Next came selection of delegates to the County Convention in February. Our precinct was allocated two delegates, and since only two people volunteered, it was a very easy selection. Two others volunteered to be alternates, so picking those were also very easy.
Everyone was then given the opportunity to make suggestions for the party platform. These suggestions were simply written on pieces of paper and collected at the end. Since everyone gets a say in the platform, there was no need to vote on them, or even read them aloud.
Finally we got to the presidential candidate preference poll. Before voting, time was given for a representative of each candidate to explain in two minutes or less why we should vote for that candidate. However, only the Mitt Romney supporters had anything prepared, so that's all we heard. Then everyone filled out their ballot, the ballots were collected, and the Captain counted and announced the results. After that we were done. All the materials (including the selected delegates and alternates, party platform suggestions, and poll results) were returned to the caucus organizers and that was that. We finished around 10:00 am.
I found this whole process to be very interesting, but I can see why primaries are used more often than caucuses. Not only are they simpler for the participants, I think they are also more fair. For instance, there were a few people who got there late and were not allowed to participate. It also discriminates against those who simply can't attend due to other commitments (I'm sure I wouldn't have gone if I lived much further away.) On the other hand, it was nice to be able to get together as neighbors to participate in the political process. In that way it was kind of fun.
So what were the results of our poll? Well, since you asked, it ended up 13 for Mitt Romney, 1 for Ron Paul. (Obviously it was a Mitt Romney neighborhood.) One other item of note was that Matt Romney was there rooting for his Dad. I got the chance to shake his hand, but didn't have my camera with me. Oh well.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing this.
Caucuses are always an interesting way to do politics.
I sort of prefer them becasue they are more demanding but they do have their trade-offs.
David, thank you for your comment. You're right that there are plusses and minuses. One of the reasons I wanted to go was just to see what it was like. A few of the others there said that was their reason as well. It'll be interesting to see if Nevada continues to have the early caucus or if they decide to go back to the primary.
By the way, thanks for linking to me at A Soft Answer. It's only right for me to return the favor.
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