Reply #16: Here's how it worked where I caucused in CO [View All]

[treehuggnlibrul]

Arrived at 6:15 in the lunchroom at elementary school. Each precinct had a table.

Everyone crammed in. One guy at my table said that in 2006, there were a total of 6 people in the whole room; they estimated 400-500 this time.

At 7 p.m. the caucus leader stood up and brought the meeting to order, then read a list of rules. One person stood up on the table and said why he was voting for Obama. One person stood up and said why she was voting for Hillary. No one stood and spoke for the uncommitteds or Gravel, though the leaders called for anyone who wanted to do so. Very congenial atmosphere. They each had 2 minutes.

Then we broke into precincts. We had to have the presidential candidate numbers/delegates in by 8 p.m. We quickly selected a chair and a secretary. Counted how many of us there were (48) then they asked who wanted Obama. 37 people raised their hands. Hillary, 9. Uncommitted, 2. Then they figure out what the threshold is for delegates. A candidate must have 15 percent of the vote to get a delegate. So the threshold was 7.something. Anyone who wanted to talk about a candidate could. Then they took a final vote, and you could switch if you wanted to. One uncommited person actually changed and voted for Obama, but then one of the Obama people went to Hillary, making it 37 and 10. One person remained uncommitted.

So then we had to calculate delegates. They told us our precinct was allowed to have 4. Based on the number of votes, Obama got 3 and Clinton got 1. Then the two groups separated. The Obama group got to pick three delegates for the county convention, Clinton group picked one. Four people in the Obama group wanted to do it, so we had to vote on three by show of hands. And then we had to pick three alternates. The Clinton group chose one delegate and one alternate. They all will go to the county convention.

After that, people could present resolutions that they wanted taken to the county convention for consideration to be added to the party platform. We adjourned at 8:30. Some precincts were still going when we left.