http://wqad.com/2016/01/29/the-differen ... s-in-iowa/The difference between how Democrats and Republicans caucus in Iowa
Democrats and Republicans caucus the same night in Iowa, but there are plenty of differences between how they carry out their party’s caucus activity.
In both cases, you can caucus if you’re eligible to vote in the state of Iowa and you will be at least 18 years old on Election Day, November 8, 2016. You must register with your party, which can be done at the caucus location, and you can change your party affiliation at your caucus location. You must go to the caucus location for your precinct, and caucus locations are not the same as polling locations.
In addition to casting support for presidential candidates, caucus-goers may make some related delegate and party platform decisions.
For Republicans, caucus-goers cast a ballot [a secret ballot] to indicate their preferred candidate. The votes are counted by the caucus chair and the winner is announced. There is no minimum, or “viability,” requirement, so every vote is counted and the winner is the candidate that received the most votes.
For more information about the Republican party’s caucus in Iowa, click here.
For Democrats, caucus-goers physically stand in an area of the room that correlates with their desired candidate – this is called aligning. During a 30-minute alignment period, people work the room to try to convince others to support their candidate. Candidates must achieve a minimum percentage of the caucus-goers at their location for their support to be deemed viable. That viability threshold is set at the beginning of the night, and is often about 15%. If your candidate isn’t deemed viable, you can either join another candidate’s group or try to obtain enough supporters at your caucus to make your candidate viable. Delegates are distributed based on the relative strength of each viable candidate.
These differences mean a few things:
First, the results of the GOP caucuses should be known well before the Demo results, since the process is much shorter. (However, though the article doesn't mention it, there's also a period where reps from the candidates get to speak before the votes are cast, so it's not quite as streamlined as it appears. Unlike a primary, you don't just show up, cast your vote and leave.)
On the GOP side, the rule differences unfortunately work to Trump's advantage in a couple of ways. First, since there's less of a time commitment involved, the Republican process is more "new caucus goer friendly". And second, because the vote is by secret ballot, Trump supporters will be subject to less embarrassment than they would be under the Democratic party approach. (The Trump campaign itself sees this as a plus; their campaign has been stressing to their supporters that there is a secret ballot)
On the Demo side, the dynamics get kind of interesting. Because of the 15% threshold, and the closeness of the race between Clinton and Sanders, where the O'Malley votes go in those precincts where he doesn't make the threshold (which will be most of them) means that the O'Malley voters could well be decisive in determining who comes out on top.
[strop mode] My, your system is completely daft!
[/strop mode]There, I said it for you, so you can save yourself the keystrokes...
