This evening Tricia and I attended our first neighborhood caucus. I had been to the state Republican convention twice before (not as a delegate, just as an interested citizen), but we were interested to see what happens on the grassroots caucus level.
(I'll upload a video soon of our precinct chair explaining how he will do his best to represent our precinct. He has been in his position for 4 years and was reelected, unopposed, to two more.)
The caucus lasted just over an hour, and most of the meeting was spent electing our representatives: the chair, vice-chair, secretary/treasurer, two county delegates, and one state delegate.
Voting was done on slips of paper, which were then hand-counted by these volunteers.
With all the attention given to church and state separation, we got a chuckle out of the text at the bottom of some of our "ballots."
There were 50 people in attendence. We were told there are 700 registered voters in our precinct. I think that is actually a pretty good turnout.
Memorable lines/takeaways:
Our vice-chair said the documents that guide his political stands are "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," the Constitution, and the Republican platform, in that order.
One concerned citizen stood up and shared thoughts about the issues that are important to him. He is against ethanol, which is "not worth a doodley."
A candidate for state delegate ended a well-rehearsed speech explaining why we should vote for him with "I hope you'll vote for me or at least seriously consider me to be your delegate. This is my last chance--I'm almost 80 years old." He was met with some kindhearted chuckles, but an upstart 30-something won the ballot.
9 comments:
We went to our Republican caucus, and only 5 people showed up. Out of those five, 3 were moving before the convention. Let's just say the other two became our delegates. It was good to go.
Nice camera. That caucus looks pretty docile compared to sheep wrangling.
No, more than nice...great camera.
That says "For church use only," doesn't it.
The New York Times online has a citizen project where you can upload pictures of polling and caucusing along with comments and suggestions on the process. I uploaded a pic of Mike in front of our voting place and it was added. Can't seem to find the link now, though. Matt, would you ever run to become a delegate?
Bec, let me know if you find that link. I definitely would run to become a delegate. If we had been at a "shy" precinct, I would have this time, but this being my first time, I decided to just take everything in and make some friends. Maybe I'll run next time. I guess I'll need to think up which documents will influence my decisions. I thought it was neat that our Vice-Chair refers to the Proclamation on the Family as his most influential document, but I think I would not use my support of religious documents, publicly, as a reason why people should vote for me. I don't think it's good form. Which documents would I mention then? I'm not exactly sure. I don't spend a lot of time reading policy documents.
I think you should mention documents that you actually are familiar with and that actually guide you. Just a thought.
Hm, point well taken. Maybe I should write a later blog post about this soon...
Found it: http://pollingplaces.nytimes.com/
Let me know if you post there.
Here's Mike:
http://tinyurl.com/3748er
I don't think there's any way you could have captured the true essence of that precinct meeting with a lesser camera. Good thing you've got it!
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