At least my vote got counted, and counted RIGHT!!!

[HuskiesHowls]

I was thinking about this earlier, and I see a post on the front page about electronic voting. A lot of the people who were upset earlier about the caucuses, calling them "undemocratic", should know that at least in a caucus, your vote counts, and it counts the way you want it to. They made all the accusations of intimidation, and people not getting to be heard. They should go to a caucus, spend more than the 1 minute it takes to vote in a primary, and truly get involved.

Yes, in a caucus, it isn't a secret ballot, but in the early years of voting in this country, it wasn't necessarily secret, either. At the precinct level, this isn't representative democracy, this is true democracy in action--one person, one vote (and if the numbers don't add up, you start all over again).

This isn't "undemocratic", this is an informed electorate, being heard, the true will of the people!

[haroldgiowa]

1. More democratic the Electorial System

I counts more then the system of the Elecotial College.

[Debi]

3. If we didn't have the electoral college then NY/CA/IL/TX would choose

our president. That means smaller states would never see our presidential candidates and never have a voice in the process (even with our small 7 votes - at least we have a small voice - with popular vote only we wouldn't even have that).

[haroldgiowa]

4. Making a point

We get the attention now because we are such a swing state. This goes in cycles. It just so happens we are evenly divided at this time. Every election cycle could change that balance with just one or two office changes. Does make for exciting elections at all levels in the state.

If a group of Californians get their way our importance will be reduced. They want to hand out the Electoral votes out by Congressional district. If this works for them then other states will fall in line, thus reducing our importance as a state. There would be no need for Democrats to ever go to western Iowa to campaign and they would go after the one or two districts that might be swing districts. I believe Maine is set up like this. It just so happens that Maine pretty much goes the same way across the state. Looking back through past elections I have seen divides in several elections.

I eventually see the above happening. People have been complaining about the Electoral College forever. One problem I see is that there is no set rule in how the Electoral College voter can cast their vote. The state determines their own rules for this. There have been times where rouge delegates cast their votes as they seem fit. I can recall a delegate in Minnesota doing this in the last election cycle. John Edwards received one more vote then John Kerry.

In the mean time we might as well enjoy the attention.

Forgive my spelling errors in the above posting. I was leaning back in my chair being a little to lazy to use spell check.

[Debi]

2. I'm disappointed in some of the people from out of state that posted in here

such nice things about Iowa and now that their candidate didn't perform the way they wanted they no longer like the caucus process.

As if in a primary things would have been different?!

I love this process. I love that we filled all our local central committee seats (and many with new members of the party). I love that so many new participants are headed to our county conventions and are serving on our platform committees.

And I love that if our candidate of choice doesn't prevail in the first round of 'voting' that we are allowed to either make another choice, encourage others to join us or stay put with our first choice. Never does that happen in a primary.

Congratulations Iowans. We did a great job!

[9119495]

5. well...we had a problem. No one said we had to keep our

nametags at sign in. A former Democratic Elected Official's nametag fell off so they did not count him. It was irrelevant in the count, but pretty stupid though.

If we needed to keep our nametags, it should have been said several times or some leeway should have been given, at least to someone EVERYONE knew was a Democrat and registered.

[Debi]

6. You had nametags? what were they for? to show who signed in or who intitial support was for? n/t

[9119495]

7. It was to show we were an official caucus attendee and

not an observer. So they served a practical purpose but no one pointed that out. For all I know, this may have dropped the count for Edwards and Clinton but I don't know for sure. I consider this a minor issue but a bit of a nagging one. Maybe observers should have been kept out, but some of them were children. I'm not really for limiting attendence. Maybe a simple "Don't dare loose this nametag if you want to count tonight."

[Debi]

8. Or, in the reverse, have observers put on colord tags - necklaces

or move to a different area in the room.

We told the Biden volunteers in our area to clearly state that they were out-of-staters and to respect the Caucus Chair and the process. Since I haven't heard any horror stories I'm going to assume that they did.

[9119495]

9. yes good ideas but...

but, what was REALLY cool was there was no extra room. My caucus site was crowded, hot, uncomfortable, and perfect.

[Debi]

10. That is perfect!

And will make November oh so sweet :hi: