Reply #61: The Wyoming 'Caucus' [View All]

[RichardRay]

is probably more of a 'county convention'.

The event served a population of 17,000 people in a county the size of some states. The sessions were scheduled on Saturday and lasted for four hours. Speechs were made for the first hour, then the balloting began. After the voting started we dealt with party business, platform discussions, etc. Participants could cast their ballots any time during the event. There were vans and private vehicles out circulating through the county getting anybody who was interested to the site of the event. I know a whole bunch of people from the hospital who came down in the afternoon and cast their ballots and left; ditto firefighters and other emergency workers. The Elder Care Center's van also circulated to pick up those with disabilities who wanted to participate.

But, that's not an election - there was no certification process, no state or federal election officials involved, and if there were a problem there would be no recourse to anything outside the party. Those things are all the same in a 'primary', too.

Folks who want to turn the nominee selection process into a nominating version of the general election need to look a lot more closely at just what they're proposing. I know that in some states the nominating process has become enmeshed in events that actually are state elections - that failure on the part of the state parties to keep their houses straight is the only reason the Florida folks have a complaint.

So, one way or the other, keep the nominating process completely isolated from the actual state or federal process - they don't belong together. I sure don't want a state or federal government controlled by a rival political party running my party's candidate selection process.