So You Want A Primary Election?
A little TLDR that I'm hoping to get published in the local paper about my current adventure into the Wyoming political scene. It won't fit on Twitter, but I can link to it! Enjoy!
I've lived in Wyoming for eleven years now, and several weeks ago I finally discovered that Wyoming is a caucus state. I'd always just assumed that Wyoming's Primary was so late in the year that the Presidential nominees had already been decided. A few old timers I know that have lived here all their lives were shocked to learn about the Caucus after I told them about it.
When I first entered Step 1 of the Republican Party Caucus process at the Laramie County Community College, I was of the opinion that it was an outdated method from back in the days before electronic media. A group of people would ride their horses for days to arrive at a designated city to tell others gathered there from various other parts of the state how awesome this one guy was in their town and what a great delegate he'd make at the National Convention. Mind you, I'm originally from a Primary state and I've never understood what these delegate people were anyway or how they got to be chosen to go to these big parties that the National Conventions look like to an outsider.
As this is an important election year, I allowed myself to get pulled into the process. We are all here for a reason, and this seemed to be mine all of a sudden. Our precinct already had four delegates to the County Convention, but we needed two more and six alternates. We shared our values with each other and what we felt about the nominees and voted among ourselves who best would represent our precinct. I was voted one of the two delegates our precinct needed. A couple of Ben Carson supporters had already left in a huff because many others at the Caucus were wearing Ted Cruz stickers and they felt their voice wasn't going to be heard. The second delegate our precinct chose was an open-minded Trump supporter (yes, they do exist). It’s too bad the Carson supporters didn't stick around. We all liked Ben, but felt he really wasn't ready. Good cabinet position perhaps. Their voice mattered to us anyway, even though they left before the nominations were made and the votes were cast.
Two weeks later, County Conventions were held throughout the state to choose some of the delegates to the National Convention and those delegates that would go to the State Convention to choose the remainder of the delegates to the National. In the Wyoming Caucus system, even the smallest counties get an opportunity to send a delegate to the National Convention to represent them. No mob rule here!
There is a push to adopt a Primary Election system in Wyoming to choose the Presidential nominees because some feel that their voice isn't heard in the Caucus system. As I’ve participated in the Caucus system, I have realized quite recently that this is an illusion. Both the Caucus and Primary Voting methods only choose delegates directly or choose how many available delegates a candidate is to be assigned to represent them. A caucus voter with no intention of continuing onward with the process has to spend a few hours, some of it standing out in the cold wind waiting to get in, talking with others, expressing their views with other voters in their precinct, all to discover and support people they feel they can trust to carry their message forward if they don’t decide to do that for themselves. At a Primary Election, you vote for a candidate and then delegates are assigned to represent that delegate -- either all available delegates, a proportion, or a hybrid of the two depending upon the Party's rules in that state. The Primary voter rarely knows the delegates even exist outside of some statistic they talk about in the news. Some states also allow some of their delegates to be assigned by the party as a reward for doing the hard and sometimes aggravating work in various committees or in leadership roles. THE DELEGATES IN ANY CASE ARE PLEDGED TO SUPPORT THEIR CANDIDATE ONLY DURING THE FIRST VOTE.
In either Caucus or Primary system, the delegates are purely ceremonial if one candidate has a clear majority (greater than 50%) of the total delegates at the start of the convention. If no candidate has a majority, then delegates begin to be released from their support pledges based upon the Party rules in their state and they vote again. This can go on for days if the delegates are passionate about the candidate they were sent to support. In the case of delegates that came from the Primary states however, they may not care at all about the candidate they were sworn to support in the first round and the voter has no way of knowing that.
It's only AFTER the first vote that the Delegates actually perform the duty they have been sent to perform -- to represent the voters of their States in the best way possible to choose a nominee faster than you could organize and fund a run-off election. I walked into this thinking that the Caucus was outdated and clunky, but once I got involved I realized that Primary voters are only fooling themselves into thinking that the vote they cast that took them little effort to record actually means something. In this election, those Primary votes won't mean anything if there is no clear majority and those voters’ biggest concern should be; what was their delegates’ SECOND choice? Only a Caucus voter has a good idea.
I’m currently an Alternate Delegate to the Wyoming State Republican Convention and I hope to make it to the National Convention in exclusive support of Ted Cruz. You now know more about me than the Primary Voter does about whoever it was he sent to the National Convention and if I’m NOT elected, I know my voice was heard quite clearly already.
I've lived in Wyoming for eleven years now, and several weeks ago I finally discovered that Wyoming is a caucus state. I'd always just assumed that Wyoming's Primary was so late in the year that the Presidential nominees had already been decided. A few old timers I know that have lived here all their lives were shocked to learn about the Caucus after I told them about it.
When I first entered Step 1 of the Republican Party Caucus process at the Laramie County Community College, I was of the opinion that it was an outdated method from back in the days before electronic media. A group of people would ride their horses for days to arrive at a designated city to tell others gathered there from various other parts of the state how awesome this one guy was in their town and what a great delegate he'd make at the National Convention. Mind you, I'm originally from a Primary state and I've never understood what these delegate people were anyway or how they got to be chosen to go to these big parties that the National Conventions look like to an outsider.
As this is an important election year, I allowed myself to get pulled into the process. We are all here for a reason, and this seemed to be mine all of a sudden. Our precinct already had four delegates to the County Convention, but we needed two more and six alternates. We shared our values with each other and what we felt about the nominees and voted among ourselves who best would represent our precinct. I was voted one of the two delegates our precinct needed. A couple of Ben Carson supporters had already left in a huff because many others at the Caucus were wearing Ted Cruz stickers and they felt their voice wasn't going to be heard. The second delegate our precinct chose was an open-minded Trump supporter (yes, they do exist). It’s too bad the Carson supporters didn't stick around. We all liked Ben, but felt he really wasn't ready. Good cabinet position perhaps. Their voice mattered to us anyway, even though they left before the nominations were made and the votes were cast.
Two weeks later, County Conventions were held throughout the state to choose some of the delegates to the National Convention and those delegates that would go to the State Convention to choose the remainder of the delegates to the National. In the Wyoming Caucus system, even the smallest counties get an opportunity to send a delegate to the National Convention to represent them. No mob rule here!
There is a push to adopt a Primary Election system in Wyoming to choose the Presidential nominees because some feel that their voice isn't heard in the Caucus system. As I’ve participated in the Caucus system, I have realized quite recently that this is an illusion. Both the Caucus and Primary Voting methods only choose delegates directly or choose how many available delegates a candidate is to be assigned to represent them. A caucus voter with no intention of continuing onward with the process has to spend a few hours, some of it standing out in the cold wind waiting to get in, talking with others, expressing their views with other voters in their precinct, all to discover and support people they feel they can trust to carry their message forward if they don’t decide to do that for themselves. At a Primary Election, you vote for a candidate and then delegates are assigned to represent that delegate -- either all available delegates, a proportion, or a hybrid of the two depending upon the Party's rules in that state. The Primary voter rarely knows the delegates even exist outside of some statistic they talk about in the news. Some states also allow some of their delegates to be assigned by the party as a reward for doing the hard and sometimes aggravating work in various committees or in leadership roles. THE DELEGATES IN ANY CASE ARE PLEDGED TO SUPPORT THEIR CANDIDATE ONLY DURING THE FIRST VOTE.
In either Caucus or Primary system, the delegates are purely ceremonial if one candidate has a clear majority (greater than 50%) of the total delegates at the start of the convention. If no candidate has a majority, then delegates begin to be released from their support pledges based upon the Party rules in their state and they vote again. This can go on for days if the delegates are passionate about the candidate they were sent to support. In the case of delegates that came from the Primary states however, they may not care at all about the candidate they were sworn to support in the first round and the voter has no way of knowing that.
It's only AFTER the first vote that the Delegates actually perform the duty they have been sent to perform -- to represent the voters of their States in the best way possible to choose a nominee faster than you could organize and fund a run-off election. I walked into this thinking that the Caucus was outdated and clunky, but once I got involved I realized that Primary voters are only fooling themselves into thinking that the vote they cast that took them little effort to record actually means something. In this election, those Primary votes won't mean anything if there is no clear majority and those voters’ biggest concern should be; what was their delegates’ SECOND choice? Only a Caucus voter has a good idea.
I’m currently an Alternate Delegate to the Wyoming State Republican Convention and I hope to make it to the National Convention in exclusive support of Ted Cruz. You now know more about me than the Primary Voter does about whoever it was he sent to the National Convention and if I’m NOT elected, I know my voice was heard quite clearly already.