My wife was working at the caucus for our precinct and legislative district in Orchards, a suburb (and partially a part of Vancouver, and so we got up and headed in early. The doors at our caucus site were scheduled to open at 9:30. Unfortunately, communications from the respective campaigns went out asking people to show up by 9:00am.
Nonetheless, people patiently waited for the doors to open without any (or much) fuss. Since I was not one of the workers I waited outside as well.
One thing I did notice was the very high percentage of people that had their caucus registration forms already printed and filled out. This really helped speed the process along. Kudos to the respective campaigns that got this information into the hands of the people who were coming to caucus today.
Once the doors opened, people came in and found their caucus groups. There were 11 precincts being handled in this caucus location, and it looked like the caucus was going to be pretty well attended overall.
At this point, I nipped out for some coffee for myself and my love.
When I got back from my coffee run, was I in for a surprise! The caucus room wasn’t simply busy — it was totally packed!
When I left, my precinct occupied two tables, with a few people not seated. By the time I got back, we had five tables for our one precinct! For comparison, 2008 was the busiest that the caucuses had ever been prior to this. Our precinct had packed about 40 people around three tables then.
What I didn’t realize until later is that there was a long cafeteria table farther left that was also part of our precinct’s caucus space. In total, there were 74 people caucusing in our precinct alone today.
Although the number of people attending was huge, the caucus was much better organized than in 2008. Back then was the first time in recent history where a caucus was anywhere near this large (Thanks, Obama), and there was a fair amount of confusion and chaos as a result. This time, they remembered what happened in 2008 and planned accordingly. Well done to the local committee people who ran this site.
By the time the caucus was formally started, the caucus room was insanely packed. Just by glancing around, I could see that there were far more people in the room than were present in 2008. To me, this implied good things for Bernie Sander’s prospects, and bad things for Hillary Clinton’s prospects. Also, the crowd looked like it was younger overall than it was in 2008. But then again, I am eight years older than then, so it could just be my imagination.
When things really got rolling, I was too busy to take much in the way of additional pictures, especially since I had been picked as the precinct captain for the Sanders campaign.
The Washington Democratic caucuses run in a specific way, with two “votes” taken. Your registration form has two spaces for candidate preferences. At the beginning of caucusing, you write your initial preference down (if any — undecided is perfectly valid) and hand the forms to the precinct caucus chair (who happened to be my wife, Laurel). We then ask for volunteers to tally the forms — at least two people are needed, and we had four volunteers.
After the tally is reconciled (if any of the talliers ended up with different numbers than the others did), the final official tally for the first ballot is returned to the precinct caucus chair. At this point, the candidate precinct chairs have the opportunity to speak about their candidates, and (if allowed by the precinct caucus chair) other people may volunteer to speak on behalf of their candidate. Finally, if you wanted to change your original choice of candidate, or had decided when you were undecided, you can get your form back from the precinct caucus chair and enter your candidate preference in the second preference box. If you don’t change your initial support, you don’t need to do anything. Ballots are then tallied again, and final numbers (and the delegate split) are announced. Finally, the delegates and alternates to the County convention (in Clark County, at least — some areas have legislative district conventions between the caucus and their county convention) are chosen by the supporters of the respective candidates.
After our first tally, the results stood as
- Bernie Sanders: 57
- Hillary Clinton: 15
- Undecided: 1
The only minor unpleasantness that happened at the caucus this year occurred during the support speeches for the candidates. The Hillary precinct chair and I (as the Bernie precinct chair) both gave reasoned, factual, and pretty good (if I may say so myself) speeches about our respective candidates. But a couple of the additional speakers added some negative, and mostly untrue, attacks on the other candidate. Unfortunately, both of the people who did this were speaking on behalf of Hillary Clinton. I don’t think that these negative statements about Bernie had any significant effect on the results overall.
After the second tally, the numbers were:
- Bernie Sanders: 59
- Hillary Clinton: 15
Our precinct had seven delegates to go to the county convention. With this vote distribution, the final result was six delegates for Bernie, and one delegate from Hillary.
What I found really noteworthy was the overall breakdown from all 11 precincts. According to the caucus location chair (who I talked with afterwards), Hillary received a maximum of one delegate from any precinct, and in some of the precincts did not have sufficient support to receive even one delegate. So, in my area at least, it was a blowout for Bernie Sanders.
So overall, the caucuses were well organized and run, with none of the feeling of confusion and chaos that dominated the caucusing in 2008. This is a bit surprising, and showed dedication and planning by the local Dem party and the people working at the site, since we had more than 400 people total in the 11 precincts — which was by far a new record for participation. Once more, kudos to the coordination team for their work.
Thanks to all of the people who showed up to participate, and I’m looking forward to finding out the final delegate count for the state sometime in May or June.
L.V.