2016 Iowa Caucus

Today is the day everyone has been waiting for. Oh, wait! That's tomorrow when all of the political ad campaigns calm down in Iowa. I do not know about you, but I can not wait for them to be done airing.

I am extremely excited for today. Today is the day I begin my first step as a registered voter in the Presidential election. Finally! I have been waiting for this moment since the last Presidential election where I fell short by one year of age.

You bet I am going to be caucusing tonight. For whom, I will not say. For those of you who do not know how or what the Iowa Caucus involves, let me give you a little lesson from the 2016 Iowa Caucus webpage.

"The Iowa presidential caucuses are local party precinct meetings where registered Republicans and Democrats gather, discuss the candidates and vote for by party preference to elect delegates to the 99 county conventions and choose their candidate for their party’s nomination.

The purpose of the caucus vote is to select delegates to attend a county convention. Each caucus sends a certain number of delegates, based on the population it represents. The delegates at the county convention in turn select delegates to go to the congressional district state convention, and those delegates choose the delegates that go to the national convention.

Presidential preference on the Republican side is done with a straw vote of those attending the caucus. This vote is sometimes done by a show of hands or by dividing themselves into groups according to candidate. In precincts that elect only 1 delegate they choose the delegate by majority vote and it must be a paper ballot.

The Democrats have a more complex system. In a typical caucus, registered democrats gather at the precinct meeting places (there are close to 2,000 precincts statewide), supporters for each candidate have a chance to make their case, and then the participants gather into groups supporting particular candidates (undecided voters also cluster into a group). In order for a particular group to be viable, they must have a certain percentage of the all the caucus participants. If they don’t have enough people, the group disbands, and its members go to another group. The percentage cut-off is determined by the number of delegates assigned to the precinct.

Democratic candidates must receive at least 15 percent of the votes in that precinct to move on to the county convention. If a candidate receives less than 15 percent of the votes, supporters of non-viable candidates have the option to join a viable candidate group, join another non-viable candidate group to become viable, join other groups to form an uncommitted group or chose to go nowhere and not be counted. Non-viable groups have up to 30 minutes to realign, if they fail to do so in that time, they can ask the for more time, which is voted on by the caucus as a whole. If the caucus refuses, re-alignment is done and delegates are awarded. A “third party” may hold a convention to nominate one candidate for president and one for vice president as well. The results of this caucus activity on both the Democratic and Republican sides are not binding on the elected delegates, but the delegates usually feel obligated to follow the wishes expressed by the caucus-goers. Thus the initial caucus results provide a good barometer of the composition of Iowa’s national delegation."

This sounds complicated because the Iowa Caucus is. This year special measures are being taken to make sure there is no miscounting or mishap on which candidates win the Caucus. The State of Iowa is not publishing the winners until the state is 100% sure of the winners.

So, if you are still confused on how the Iowa Caucus works, watch this video.

WATCH ME!!

I hope everyone has a chance to go out and caucus tonight in the State of Iowa. Everyone should want a say in which candidate will become the next President of the United States and this is how it starts. We are the first in the nation to have a say, so why not start a trend?! GO OUT AND CAUCUS!