What’s a Caucus?
In an election year, each party has to nominate candidates, write a platform and organize its effort to get out the vote on Election Day. Colorado’s extremely democratic process starts with precinct caucuses.
Precinct Caucuses
Precincts are the smallest political unit in the state. They generally hold a thousand or fewer people: basically a neighborhood. Your caucus reflects you and your neighbors. Some meet, do their business and adjourn. Some debate for hours. On the day of the caucus these precincts divide by party, and each party holds a precinct caucus at someone’s home or in a public building. Anyone can come to a precinct caucus, but not everybody can vote. In order to vote, you have to be a registered elector in the precinct, you have to have lived in the precinct for at least 25 days before the caucus and have been affiliated with a party for at least two months. There are some exceptions: if you just turned 18 or just became a citizen you’re eligible.
At every caucus, the agenda is the same:
- Elect a chair to run the meeting
- Elect someone to record the meeting
- Elect two precinct committee people (often a man and a woman) to represent the precinct on its party’s county central committee
- Elect delegates to the county assembly
- Introduce, debate and approve or reject resolutions and platform issues
Getting Started
First the caucus elects a chairperson or chair people to run the meeting and a secretary to write down what happens. Then you’ll elect precinct committee people. In some caucuses, the same precinct committee people are re-elected and serve for decades. In others, the committee people switch off more frequently.
The precinct committee people will represent the caucus on the party’s county central committee for the next two years. They’re also expected to do precinct work, like getting out the vote on Election Day and planning the next caucus.
Usually someone in the caucus speaks for each candidate seeking a nomination; in a presidential election year that can mean candidates for president, governor, senator, representative, the state legislature and county offices.
Delegates
When you’re finished debating, it’s time to elect delegates. These delegates will represent the caucus at the county assembly. Each precinct usually gets between two and six delegates; the actual number is decided by the executive committee county party based on a few factors:
- The number of registered party members in the precinct.
- The precinct’s performance (what percentage of people vote their party in general elections)
- How many delegates from the precinct actually showed up for the County Assembly in prior years.
Sizing Up Delegates
Here’s how you select your precinct’s delegates to the County Assembly. First of all, you only select delegates for candidates in one race, chosen by the state party. So let’s say in the November general election voters in Boulder County will be voting for a governor, a U.S. senator, a U.S. representative, state senators, state representatives, and a sheriff. At your caucus you will elect delegates to the County Assembly based on their preference for governor. But not every candidate for governor is guaranteed delegates from your caucus.
In order to get any delegates from your caucus, a candidate must get at least 15% of the vote at your caucus. Incidentally, undecided is treated just like a candidate. So let’s say your caucus gets two delegates and the vote breaks down this way: Candidate A gets 60%, Undecided gets 30% and Candidate B gets 10%. Your caucus will send one delegate for Candidate A, one delegate for undecided and no delegates for Candidate B.
OK, but as important as you believe the gubernatorial race is, what you’re really interested in is the race for sheriff. What do you do? If you really care about the race for sheriff, you have to figure out which potential delegates favor your sheriff candidate, then vote for them based on whom they want for governor.
If there are a lot of races, there are obviously a lot of possible combinations of favorite candidates. Since you can send only a limited number of delegates to the County Assembly, you’re going to have to wheel, deal and compromise. Some precincts hold a series of non-binding straw polls for all of the contested races. They give you an idea of who supports whom in which race and how much support each candidate has. That way you can see if your candidate for governor has enough support to get any delegates. If he, she or it (in the case of undecided) doesn’t, you can consider switching your vote to a candidate that does. It may sound odd, but not only does it ensure that your vote counts beyond the caucus, it helps you select delegates who will support your candidate(s) for races other than governor.
Electing Delegates
Then you choose the actual delegates. These are the people
who will go on to the county assembly where the whole process will be
repeated on a larger scale. To elect delegates, your caucus will hold a
real vote for governor. Then the chair will use a simple formula to
apportion your caucus’ total number of delegates among the candidates
who qualify for delegates based on the vote. If your caucus gets two
delegates and only two candidates qualify for delegates, it’s pretty
simple: each candidate gets one delegate. If your caucus gets three
delegates and the vote is 80% for Candidate A and 20% for Undecided, A
gets two delegates and Undecided gets one.
So who gets to go as delegates to the County Assembly? That takes a
little more democracy. Your caucus will break up into mini-caucuses
based on gubernatorial preference. So in the case of our previous
example, those in favor of Candidate A will form a group and those in
favor of Undecided will form a group. By now you’ll know how many
delegates your candidate, and therefore your group, gets.
Then you’ll ask who in your group wants to be a delegate to the county
assembly. If more people want to go than you get delegates, you’ll have
to vote. One good way to get chosen as delegate is to convince people
that you really, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die, will show up at the
Assembly. Those who don’t get selected as delegates can be alternates.
You’ll select one alternate for each delegate. Alternates can go to the
assembly, but they can only vote if the delegate doesn’t.
The Platform
People at your caucus can also introduce items to be included in the party platform. You debate the items, and then vote on them. If your precinct approves an item, it gets passed on to the county platform committee, which will discuss incorporating it into the county platform.
The County Assembly
At the County Assembly the process starts all over again, only this time you’re nominating candidates for countywide office and electing delegates to a variety of assemblies:
- The State Assembly, which nominates candidates for statewide office, elects delegates to the party’s national convention and considers planks in the state party platform.
- The Congressional District Assembly, which nominates candidates for Congress and the State Board of Education.
- The Senatorial and Representative District Assemblies, which nominate candidates for the Colorado General Assembly.
- The Judicial District Assembly, which nominates
candidates for district attorney.
That’s a lot of assemblies, but most of them are held on the same day at the same location. Usually the Congressional District Assembly is held the night before the State Assembly and all of the rest of them are held the next day at the location of the State Assembly.
The Primary Election
If more than one candidate gets 30% of the vote at an assembly it goes back to the voters. The eligible candidates run against each other in a Primary Election . Incidentally, a candidate who doesn’t get 30% of the vote at an assembly isn’t necessarily out. He or she just has to collect enough signatures on petitions (the number is decided by the Secretary of State based on number of votes cast in previous elections), to qualify. There is a catch, though: a candidate who participates in an assembly and fails to get at least 10% of the vote, cannot petition his or her way on to the primary ballot.
The General Election
The winners of the primary get their party’s nomination and go on to the General Election in November.
More Information
About now you may be saying to yourself "this is fascinating, where can I read more!" Well, you can go right to the law itself. It’s in the Colorado Revised Statutes, Volume 1, Title 1, or § 1-1-101 et seq. C.R.S. (2001). You can get to the statute via the Internet at http://64.78.178.125/stat01/index.htm. [Editor's note: This URL doesn't seem to work. Check back later].
The 2004 Colorado Caucuses will be held on April 13.
Some Links:
- Colorado Department of State Elections Center
- Printable Voter Registration Form (revision: Jan 2004) [PDF]
- Formulario de Solicitud de Inscripción de Votante [PDF]
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