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I caucused for the very first time this afternoon. The reason I've never done it before is because the caucuses are always held on Saturday afternoons here in Washington state, and TPTB don't seem to care about the thousands of people who get disenfranchised because they have to work on Saturdays. Which is something that makes me very angry.
The caucus, at least the one I attended, was incredibly badly-organized. If you didn't have your voter registration card, which many people including moi didn't (it's not a priority to hang onto same when you've been voting by mail for fifteen years -- and we were not told we'd need to know this particular piece of obscure information ahead of time in any of the "how to caucus" info that was spread everywhere), the process for getting to the right table for one's precinct involved passing around a single tiny, nearly illegible map obviously printed off the internet, or, for the few folks with smart phones (who were mobbed the moment they pulled said phones out), getting onto the internet to look up your address on the county auditor's website -- which promptly crashed from too many hits.
It was also a very claustrophobic experience, with way too many people crammed into one building not designed for a gathering of that size (the fire marshall would have been having spasms). The turnout was much higher than TPTB expected, which was also exceedingly stupid on their part given the attention the elections have been getting and the high levels of dissatisfaction with the current administration, and I left as soon as I got my preferences Officially Taken Down, not bothering to wait around to listen to a bunch of strangers who happen to live within ten miles of me try to convince me to vote their way.
Caucuses are stupid and outdated, and somebody (who isn't abjectly terrified of getting up in front of people to the point of being sick for three days afterwards) needs to bring a class action lawsuit (if indeed that would be the correct action -- IANAL) against the Washington State Democratic and Republican Parties over the disenfranchisement issue. We have caucuses here because the Parties had a hissy fit and brought a lawsuit to have our former -- exceedingly workable -- primary system declared unconstitutional a few years ago because you didn't have to declare a party before voting in the primary (yes, that's grossly oversimplified but from what I gather essentially true -- IANAL again).
I tried to be a good little citizen, but really. It was ridiculous.
I didn't have a whole lot of sympathy for mandatory voting before, but now? Seems like caucusing wouldn't work in a mandatory voting situation, and that alone would make it worth it. Better to be required to vote than to be disenfranchised.
Oh, and my candidate lost. Of course (I've only voted for a winning candidate twice in my entire life). Which actually seems kind of petty when put up against the rest of the disaster. Not that I don't feel like most Democrats at this point. All I want right now is a candidate who can beat the Republicans soundly in November. Whether he's a black man or she's a woman is irrelevant. Pretty please, Santa???
I could have gotten enthusiastic about John Edwards, but I never got the chance [sigh].
The caucus, at least the one I attended, was incredibly badly-organized. If you didn't have your voter registration card, which many people including moi didn't (it's not a priority to hang onto same when you've been voting by mail for fifteen years -- and we were not told we'd need to know this particular piece of obscure information ahead of time in any of the "how to caucus" info that was spread everywhere), the process for getting to the right table for one's precinct involved passing around a single tiny, nearly illegible map obviously printed off the internet, or, for the few folks with smart phones (who were mobbed the moment they pulled said phones out), getting onto the internet to look up your address on the county auditor's website -- which promptly crashed from too many hits.
It was also a very claustrophobic experience, with way too many people crammed into one building not designed for a gathering of that size (the fire marshall would have been having spasms). The turnout was much higher than TPTB expected, which was also exceedingly stupid on their part given the attention the elections have been getting and the high levels of dissatisfaction with the current administration, and I left as soon as I got my preferences Officially Taken Down, not bothering to wait around to listen to a bunch of strangers who happen to live within ten miles of me try to convince me to vote their way.
Caucuses are stupid and outdated, and somebody (who isn't abjectly terrified of getting up in front of people to the point of being sick for three days afterwards) needs to bring a class action lawsuit (if indeed that would be the correct action -- IANAL) against the Washington State Democratic and Republican Parties over the disenfranchisement issue. We have caucuses here because the Parties had a hissy fit and brought a lawsuit to have our former -- exceedingly workable -- primary system declared unconstitutional a few years ago because you didn't have to declare a party before voting in the primary (yes, that's grossly oversimplified but from what I gather essentially true -- IANAL again).
I tried to be a good little citizen, but really. It was ridiculous.
I didn't have a whole lot of sympathy for mandatory voting before, but now? Seems like caucusing wouldn't work in a mandatory voting situation, and that alone would make it worth it. Better to be required to vote than to be disenfranchised.
Oh, and my candidate lost. Of course (I've only voted for a winning candidate twice in my entire life). Which actually seems kind of petty when put up against the rest of the disaster. Not that I don't feel like most Democrats at this point. All I want right now is a candidate who can beat the Republicans soundly in November. Whether he's a black man or she's a woman is irrelevant. Pretty please, Santa???
I could have gotten enthusiastic about John Edwards, but I never got the chance [sigh].
