Posted on 01/22/2016 7:40:46 AM PST by ken5050
Google hasn't worked...so the next best source is learned FReepers. I understand that there are considerable changes this year (from prior cycles) in how the Iowa GOP caucus actually works, and I'm trying to understand them and what they might mean to the outcome.
Do they announce the totals after each vote...or just say which candidates aren't viable?
Given the large number of GOP candidates, there could be a big chunk of votes..maybe 35%..that would then go elsewhere on subsequent ballots.
Thanks in advance for any explanation, and if you have any links to sources...please post them.
So are Trump, Cruz, Rubio and some other players to be named later.
Rim shot!!!!!
You are confusing the different systems of the Democrat and Republican caucuses. Republicans have always had a secret ballot vote. Democrats separate into groups, have viability percentages, and a second vote.
At the Republican caucus we vote, count ballots, announce the results, and report them on the online app. After that some people leave. We move on to elect county Central Committee members, delegates to the county GOP convention March 12, and discuss platform planks.
To find your precinct and caucus location visit
https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterreg/pollingplace/search.aspx
This is my first time. But as I understand it, you register at the door, only Republicans but you can register as such at the door. One, maybe two, people can speak for the candidate for five minutes. You write-in the candidate you want on a blank piece of paper and turn it in. The ballots are tallied and then input to Des Moines by a web app. Pretty simple. Not sure if the results are released to the caucus goers, but I will know more tomorrow after a training session.
After the vote you can turn in suggested plank positions. These will not be discussed just passed up to the County Party headquarters.
I think it’s the Democrats that get to stand in the corner.
For GOP it's a straw poll, sometimes raise your hand, sometimes secret ballot. One vote. Then the totals get reported.
The votes are used, usually, to elect people to the county convention. For example, if candidate A gets 50% of the vote in the precinct straw poll, that candidate gets 50% of the delegates to the county convention from that precinct. I don't think it's required that the county delegates get apportioned in this way, but that's the way it's been done in the caucuses that I've gone to via a procedural vote at the caucus.
No delegates to the national convention get assigned at the GOP caucuses. That happens at the state convention. So the "winner" of the caucus vote won't necessarily get the most delegates to the national convention. It just means they won the straw poll taken at the caucuses.
Many thanks....
Caucus votes have always been secret ballot in Republican Caucuses. democrat procedures are different and supporters of individual candidates gather in different sections of a room, so are easily identified. Not so with a Republican Caucus.
The only difference in Republican Caucus procedures this year is the way the poll results are reported to Des Moines. This year it is being done electronically, rather than via telephone.
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