Caucusing in Washington...by The Stranger.

[WOT?*]

Thought that those who were in the trenches would appreciate this. @maddawg228 and I don't recall who else was out there. But, yeah, it was draining.

www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/04/19/23979625/this-past-weekends-democratic-caucuses-were-an-unbearable-ordeal

Did you know that Washington state held an important presidential election milestone this past weekend? That's right — while you were busy getting stoned at the nude beach, political hobbyists around the state gathered together to decide who gets to represent us at the national convention and cast the actual votes for Hillary and Bernie. So, if you really want to have a say in who gets to pick the Democratic nominee, this weekend was your chance to do it.

And by all accounts, it was a shitshow.

I won't try to explain the process of choosing delegates because 1.) it is boring, 2.) there is a 100% chance I will get some aspect of it wrong, and 3.) all you really need to know is that the process for choosing our leaders includes feats of physical endurance, and also getting really mad on the internet afterwards.

There's a thread on Reddit itemizing the woes. Among them: long lines to get in; a weird voting process; and rule changes that nobody seemed to understand. "The entire process seems to be one that values your voice only if you have the time and stamina to sit in a blazing hot room with a thousand other people for 9 hours straight," wrote one person.

Wrote others: "Yep! I was extremely excited to be a delegate. Never again. ... It took 8 hours before it finally let out. My butt hurts from the plastic gym bleachers." And: "I arrived around 12:20 for the 1PM start time... I wanted to run, but was exhausted and speeches for delegate election didn't start until 6pm. About 70 people lined up to speak. It was damn near 90 degrees in there, everyone was exhausted, and nobody had eaten in at least 6 hours. I couldn't do it."

Reports from other Reddit users (who trend toward Bernie, FWIW) indicate that the process took 10 hours if you were actually selected to be a delegate.

One reason it took so long: speeches. Lots and lots of speeches. Everyone gets some time to speak their mind, which sounds frankly hellish. "Nearly 60 people decided they wanted to be CD delegates out of 18 seats so those speeches took a long time," said one report. West Seattle is reported to have had 200 speeches, and eventually restricted speakers to 15 seconds. The 43rd district had 300.

Elsewhere, ballot-printing had to happen on the spot, and took forever. Some places ran out of paper. A teenager who brought his own gavel ran for a seat, which sounds like fun.

And apparently there were some rude Bernie Sanders supporters, if you can believe that. "Found our fellow Sanders supporters to be pretty embarrassingly lacking in self-awareness. Way too much aggression. It was very frustrating to watch," wrote one person. Apparently there was one guy with sunglasses who kept trying to yell at the speaker.

According to another report, "bald-bearded-kilt guy and scruffy-glasses-wearing-bullhorn-carrying-bernie-tee guy just about made me lose my shit," and I think we all have a very clear picture in our minds of both attendees. There was a literal neckbeard.

Party leaders — at least, some of them — understand that it was a frustrating process, and have a marvelous suggestion: the solution to all of this misery is to subject yourself to even more of it.

"Can we please all work to get rid of this caucus system in our state?" begged one voice of reason.

A complete answer to that question is long, but the short answer is "no," because the state doesn't register people by party, so if we did a primary Republicans could vote for the Democratic candidate. That could be bad ... but after reading the reports from this weekend, I'm not sure it would be worse than what we have to put up with now.

[madDawg228]

I just finished reading that from a link on FB
It was so grueling, I was there from 12:30 pm (I know, I slacked in getting there), and left around 7:45 pm.  I'm going to compose a 2nd post in this thread when I have a little more time.  

[madDawg228]

Here's my Legislative Caucus story... (it's a long one)
Per the Tuesday Daily Thread - I was on Day 2 of my period (the heaviest day and the day where I feel faint, yay!).  Thus, I didn't show up to stand in line until 12:30pm (doors opened around 11:30, the caucus was set to start at 1:00pm).  Luckily I knew someone who was already in line and in the same Precinct line I was, so I looked confused and cut in line to get my credentials (which were a piece of yellow cardstock and lanyard with my name/precinct/Presidential pref)    

This was a big issue of complaint at the caucuses - the lines to get your credentials.  The lines stretched out of the cafeteria (local high school), and mixed together in a huge hot mess.  No one could tell what line was what.  Once you got inside the cafeteria you saw 8 1/2" x 11" paper signs with Precinct numbers (example: 2202 - 2259), and you should get into that line if you were from Precinct 2246.  But the signs were so small a lot of people ended up in the wrong line and would have to try to cross through the other lines to get to the right line.

A lot of people blamed the Democratic "establishment" for this issue (and all issues that were a part of reality or imagined).  But really, it was an issue of having a small number of volunteers who are active members of the local party and not a lot of $$$$ to spend on the event.  They are not equipped to handle the HUGE number of people who show up, and many of those who showed up did not donate money ($$$ which keeps the caucuses running).  I donated and payed a membership fee to join my local party.  There is a Meet the Candidate Forum on Thursday that they are hosting, I'm looking forward to it. I haven't joined in the past because I wanted to wait until I was in my "permanent" district and was a proper homeowner and all that, but with this housing market who knows when that will happen, so I bucked up and finally joined.

The next step after getting your credentials was to move to the gymnasium.  The long lines caused a delay in start time, I think we officially started around 2:00pm. There were less seats than butts, so many were on the floor.  I was lucky and got a seat next to two nice Hillary supporters in their 70's.  Then the caucus "started." We pledged allegiance to the flag, and listened to some introductions.   Then people started to come to the mics that were set out, and questioned a rule that states Alternates are to replace Delegates in order they are elected (Delegate 1, then Delegate 2, etc) within the same Presidential preference, then from Precinct, and same gender if possible.  Berners did not like that one bit.

One after another, Bernie supporters went up to the mics and went on and on about the injustices of that rule and how terrible the caucus system is (even though Bernie gets more Delegates via caucus than primaries).  Bernie supporters began to heckle the speakers of the caucus.  They kept interrupting the main speaker (the Temporary Chair? I can't remember all the titles now), and telling him to enunciate and be more articulate, over and over (mind you the speaker is a POC with a slight accent). 

There were also speeches (5 minutes total for each set of Candidate supports) from two people for Hillary (who were picked by the campaign, but didn't do a very good job imo because they didn't talk about Hillary at all, just how important it is to vote) and five people for Bernie (who volunteered because the Sanders campaign didn't have anyone already picked out to speak <-- which was a Hillary conspiracy allegedly )  One of the Bernie supporters laid on the floor and threw a temper tantrum (crying and kicking her legs) and said how Hillary ruined politics and was not a good woman. Then more mic time with rule complaints.

A handful of Hillary supporters (who I think were already part of the local party, and helped to organize the caucus) went up to the mics and tried to explain why the rule was written, and got shut down by some FEEL THE BERN chant.  Eventually someone got to the mic and asked that the motion be tabled/ended - it was 4:30pm by this time and my brain was a little numb by the insanity and I can't remember my Roberts Rules of Order.

There was then a final tallying of Delegates after a third seating of Alternates, and the Berners complained for an additional hour and then the Delegates were separated.

Then the Hillary Delegates went to the cafeteria to vote for our Delegates going on to the next round (and the Berners stayed in the large gymnasium, since they outnumbered Hillary folks).  You were supposed to sign up to become a Delegate again when you signed up for your credentials earlier in the day.  We had 130-something people sign up for 13 Delegate spots and six Alternate spots.  Each speaker got 30 seconds to speak.  AND the printer that the party was using stopped working, so instead of nice printed ballots to pick our top 13 people, we had to wait longer OR write the names of our top six females and top six males and one more person.  I took notes during all of the speeches, but I couldn't read the names as they were posted.  I left early, because I was famished and felt like my abdomen hated me (and I was out of tampons).  After speaking to others who were voting, I think there was a good chance that my "favorites" would go through.  It was about 7:45pm when I left.  The Berners had to elect 26 people for Delegate and 13 Alternates, so those foolios were probably there until 9pm or so.

[madDawg228]

And something else I want to throw out there, I feel similarly towards Bernie supporters in the way I feel towards Oregon Duck fans. I'm sure there are some decent supporters and fans out there, but there are a whole lot of dipshits out there starting dumpster fires - which ruin both my outlooks on Bernie and the Ducks.

I'm not sure if anyone else gets that correlation, but if anyone could, maybe another Seattle Nextie will

[WOT?*]

Mine sounds organized compared to yours. We had some boo-ers and chanters but for the most part they behaved. The thing that kills me is that when we were speaking for delegate/alternate for Hillary we gave short speeches in normal voices; when I went inside to check ballot counts, the Berners that were trying to get selected were all yelly about the establishment and Bernie will save the world and all that stuff. There were no less than three guys who sounded exactly the same and gave almost the same speech. I know, we're all shocked, right?

We had about 30-40 speakers for "Why I am voting for this candidate" The speaker made sure we followed the rules, including "Each candidate must have the same number of speakers." So if we could only find three people to talk about voting for Hillary, then Bernie only got three to talk about Birdie and the anointing by the Pope and all the other reasons to vote for him. We managed to find at least 30 for each side, and at 3 minutes each... Thank heavens it was limited to one hour of stump speeches.

The ballots were cast for delegates and there was a fund time of counting and calculating how many delegates, based on how many showed up for each candidate. It was about a 3:1 ratio for Bernie in our district.

I did manage to fall on my ass in front of everybody. It happens often enough that I'm no longer embarrassed about it. Or at least I don't show it as I get up and take my bow.

[madDawg228]

WOT?*, that does sound a little smoother than my caucus. Sorry you fell, but it sounds like there were plenty of people acting like asses, they didn't notice that you fell on yours

Are you going to the King County Convention? (assuming you're in King County) I'm debating, because it's in Renton and kinda far for me.

[WOT?*]

madDawg228

I was quite visible, as I was talking with a friend's son right along the sidelines. He was laying down resting and I bent over to joke with him about his mom not bring a pillow or blanket. She left to go to the McCartney concert and we were talking about that. Visible enough that I took a bow, basically. lol.

I'm on the Snohomish county side of Bothell. I *THINK* we're going to be in Bellevue for some reason (which is King County - but our Leg. District covers king and south Snohomish). I'm not a delegate or alternate but I might still go. I've come this far so even if I don't have a vote I can still help and watch and listen.

But my girl won, handily, so I'm happy today. Except for the eye doctor appointment...but I get to go to a luncheon after that if I get out in time.

We'll have to do a GTG sometime. I'm trying to pull one together for August at the Mariners. Which reminds me...

[madDawg228]

WOT?*, I was talking about the County Conventions on May 1st, not the Congressional District Caucuses on May 21st. This dual Caucus/Convention system in WA is cray cray and confusing. At the County Conventions they are going to go over the platform of the Party. According to the site: www.wa-democrats.org/page/county-convention-locations , it looks like you will be in Mill Creek.

Always up for a good GTG

[WOT?*]

Apr 20, 2016 11:58:18 GMT -5 madDawg228 said:

WOT?* , I was talking about the County Conventions on May 1st, not the Congressional District Caucuses on May 21st. This dual Caucus/Convention system in WA is cray cray and confusing. At the County Conventions they are going to go over the platform of the Party. According to the site: www.wa-democrats.org/page/county-convention-locations , it looks like you will be in Mill Creek.

Always up for a good GTG

Whoops. I knew the May 1st ones were out there - and on my calendar. I might go, if it doesn't run into seven hours of hell.

[madDawg228]

Here are some photos of the gym where the main part of the caucus took place, I'm on the 2nd row, at the far end of the bleachers on the right side  Sorry for the huge photos:

[madDawg228]

Apr 20, 2016 18:21:09 GMT -5 spunbutterfly said:

Were you at Ballard High, madDawg228 ?

Nope, I was at Shorecrest in Shoreline.

[7costanza]

Apr 20, 2016 11:35:57 GMT -5 WOT?* said:

madDawg228

I was quite visible, as I was talking with a friend's son right along the sidelines. He was laying down resting and I bent over to joke with him about his mom not bring a pillow or blanket. She left to go to the McCartney concert and we were talking about that. Visible enough that I took a bow, basically. lol.

I'm on the Snohomish county side of Bothell. I *THINK* we're going to be in Bellevue for some reason (which is King County - but our Leg. District covers king and south Snohomish). I'm not a delegate or alternate but I might still go. I've come this far so even if I don't have a vote I can still help and watch and listen.

But my girl won, handily, so I'm happy today. Except for the eye doctor appointment...but I get to go to a luncheon after that if I get out in time.

We'll have to do a GTG sometime. I'm trying to pull one together for August at the Mariners. Which reminds me...

Are you Legislative District 1? If so, I was there too. I live close to Bothell in sno county. I booked it out of there as soon as they said all the delegates were accounted for, 4+ hours was plenty and at that point I did not care who they elected to the May 1st caucus. I was getting so annoyed by the speeches that at one point I just went outside and read on my kindle app. I was happy to be there to support Hillary, but never again!

[WOT?*]

Apr 20, 2016 22:47:52 GMT -5 7costanza said:

Apr 20, 2016 11:35:57 GMT -5 WOT?* said:

madDawg228

I was quite visible, as I was talking with a friend's son right along the sidelines. He was laying down resting and I bent over to joke with him about his mom not bring a pillow or blanket. She left to go to the McCartney concert and we were talking about that. Visible enough that I took a bow, basically. lol.

I'm on the Snohomish county side of Bothell. I *THINK* we're going to be in Bellevue for some reason (which is King County - but our Leg. District covers king and south Snohomish). I'm not a delegate or alternate but I might still go. I've come this far so even if I don't have a vote I can still help and watch and listen.

But my girl won, handily, so I'm happy today. Except for the eye doctor appointment...but I get to go to a luncheon after that if I get out in time.

We'll have to do a GTG sometime. I'm trying to pull one together for August at the Mariners. Which reminds me...

Are you Legislative District 1? If so, I was there too. I live close to Bothell in sno county. I booked it out of there as soon as they said all the delegates were accounted for, 4+ hours was plenty and at that point I did not care who they elected to the May 1st caucus. I was getting so annoyed by the speeches that at one point I just went outside and read on my kindle app. I was happy to be there to support Hillary, but never again!

Ah, so you saw me fall on my ass for Hillary!

Yes. I was at Inglewood HS. Brilliant person that I am, I accidentally showed up for a leadership meeting on Thursday and ended up doing Saturday's phone bank and signing in delegates Sunday. I was invested enough that it made me stupid. I didn't get out of there until about 7:30.