South Portland Caucus Op-Ed from the NY Times

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Here's a report from the caucus I had the joy of participating in last weekend...

Notes from a Caucus
By GAIL COLLINS

I was at a Democratic caucus at the South Portland High School gymnasium in Maine last weekend. It was run by some lovely, public-spirited people and was attended by about 1,000 voters who took the trouble to come out of their homes on an extremely snowy Sunday. Kudos to all. However, on the down side:
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B) The gym’s seating was not constructed for people over the age of 18. If you were inspired by those Iraqis with purple fingers, envision an elderly man with a cane trying to clamber up over several tiers of benches so he could spend the afternoon sitting on a backless bench in order to vote for a presidential nominee.

C) The caucus was scheduled to open at 1 p.m. Three hours later, they were just approaching the part where people actually vote.

Continued: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/opinion/14collins.html

My ward did its voting outside of the gym and it was more organized than what she is reporting went down later in the article. In our ward we were well aware of how many delegates had been won by each candidate, though most people left before the official count was announced. It sounds like the vote that went down in the gym perhaps was not quite as organized.