Is that a general exclamation of disbelief, or a request for clarification? If the latter, what part?

We have both a primary and a caucus. The democratic party only counts the caucus results in how they award the nomination delegates. So, voting in the primary as a democrat is pretty much a waste of paper, time (and postage if you vote absentee.)

Something like 20 years ago there was an initiative that said "Washington State WILL have a presidential primary." So the state has to hold the primary. But the political parties aren't bound by initiatives, so they're free to assign delegates however they want, and for whatever reason, they chose caucuses (though as noted abovebelow, the Republican party has lately been using the caucus to determine a varying percentage of the delegates and the primary for the rest).

I imagine the state is annoyed at having to put on and pay for an election that's effectively a beauty contest.

Edited at 2008-02-08 03:57 am (UTC)

Oh, absolutely. I'm not saying the caucuses are a bad idea so much as "it's a pity they have to spend the resources on the primary, too." My husband became a PCO at the '04 caucuses and is now treasurer for the Democrats in the 41st LD, secretary for the 8th CD, and doing a lot of website/technology stuff both in the district on up through the state level.

I find this particularly amusing since in 2000 he attended the Republican caucus (trying to get some support in for McCain, who he's now horrified by) and because he doesn't really like to make phone calls or talk to strangers, and yet, here he is doing all this stuff. He's even convening our area caucus in a couple of days, which entails getting up and talking to a room full of people. His parents think his wacky liberal Berkeley-born wife has corrupted him. ;-)

Basically the caucus vote is what decides where WA's delegates go. The primary is "non-binding", which is a nice way of saying "pointless", as far as I can tell. Though I suppose the popular vote numbers could be used to try to predict which way the state's vote will go in November.

This is only on the Democratic side; I gather that on the Republican side, half the delegates are decided by the caucus and the other half are decided by the primary.

Election law. You don't even have to squint for it to make your head hurt.

She avoids the phone. The best choice would be your county elections office.

You can also try http://www.smartvoter.org or http://vote411.org (both League of Woman Voters)

I'm of mixed feelings. I dislike that there are many people who are disenfranchised if their work or home situation doesn't allow them to get to the caucus location; but the extra work that people have to go to to get to one would, I think, help the people who do caucus be more interested and, as you say, informed about what they're doing. It becomes less of a strict democracy that way, but then again I've never been sure that strict democracy was significantly different from mob rule.

This Saturday will be the first time I've been able to participate in a caucus; it will be interesting to observe the process.

To clarify, "the stupid it burns" is referring more to having a primary vote at all if the delegates are all assigned via the caucus.