The Iowa Experience

Yes, we went to the caucuses a while back. We couldn't participate because we're still PA residents, but we went as observers. It was very interesting.

After doing some research, we decided to observe the Democratic side because they have a much more involved process. Here's a summary of that process, taken from this article from answers.com:

"Participants indicate their support for a particular candidate by standing in a designated area of the caucus site (forming a "preference group"). An area may also be designated for undecided participants. Then, for roughly 30 minutes, participants try to convince their neighbors to support their candidates. Each preference group might informally deputize a few members to recruit supporters from the other groups and, in particular, from among those undecided. Undecided participants might visit each preference group to ask its members about their candidate.

After 30 minutes, the electioneering is temporarily halted and the supporters for each candidate are counted. At this point, the caucus officials determine which candidates are "viable". Depending on the number of county delegates to be elected, the "viability threshold" can be anywhere from 15% to 25% of attendees. For a candidate to receive any delegates from a particular precinct, he or she must have the support of at least that many caucus participants in that precinct. Once viability is determined, participants have roughly another 30 minutes to "realign": the supporters of inviable candidates may find a viable candidate to support, join together with supporters of another inviable candidate to secure a delegate for one of the two, or choose to abstain. This "realignment" is a crucial distinction of caucuses in that (unlike a primary) being a voter's "second candidate of choice" can help you.

When the voting is closed, a final head count is conducted, and each precinct apportions delegates to the county convention. These numbers are reported to the state party, which counts the total number of delegates for each candidate and reports the results to the media."

To an outsider, it all seemed kind of crazy and old fashioned. We had never seen anything like it. People literally took paper tickets and placed them in a container for the first count for viability. The count for delegates was done by a head count! Though I'm sure the people conducting the counts were careful, there have to be some errors.

The best part was when people try to convince other people to come over to their "side." There were just under 800 people at our precinct, so the "debate" that takes place was pretty much reduced to people shouting at each other or chanting their candidate's name. Then, whenever some one joined a new group to support a new candidate, everyone went crazy. It was wild.

Oh, and Madeleine Albright was there--at our precinct. She was also an observer, so she stood right by us, and, like a bunch of stalkers, we took some pictures of her:



Overall, we're glad we went. It was quite a strange, but interesting, experience.