Nebraska Caucus: Omayhem

A dispatch from my brother Dan from today's caucus in Omaha:

Notes on the Nebraska Democratic Caucus - Douglas County

After attending the Barack Obama rally at the Omaha Civic Auditorium on Thursday, it was clear to me that the turnout would be quite high for the first-ever caucus for Nebraska Democrats today. The chairman of the Douglas County Democratic Party had an auditorium of over 7,000 people chanting in unison "Nine Fifteen!" when he asked when we should arrive at caucus sites, and "Ten O'Clock!" when he asked when caucusing would begin.

So I arrived this morning at my caucus site, Monroe Middle School, at 9:15. Already there was a line that stretched for about a block outside the building. Soon, a second line formed for those who wanted to register to vote or who wanted to change their registration in order to participate. People were orderly and calm, standing in slow-moving lines in below-freezing weather.

Once inside the building, I got into another line according to the first letter of my last name. I was in the M-Pi line (the longest one). There was an A-C line (quick quick), a D-H line (medium, confused), and a Q-Z line (nobody). "I" through "L"? Who knows.

While in this line, I again read Faulkner's Nobel Prize address, my own little audacity of hope: "... the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. ... I decline to accept the end of man."

Once I reached the head of the line, I was asked to find my name and voter number in the voter roll. Then I was to fill out a blue slip (mine was a photocopied piece of paper, others had printed cards) with my name, address, presidential preference, voter number, phone number and e-mail address (yeah right on those last two). Pay attention to the blue slip.

(One interesting item: my next-door neighbor registered to vote, got his blue card and entered the caucusing auditorium before I did, and he arrived twenty minutes after me. I have been a registered Democrat in Douglas County since I was eighteen.)

Once I completed my blue slip, around 10:15, I was directed to the auditorium, where I was told: if you're for Obama, stand in this hallway outside the auditorium; if you're for Hillary there's still room in there. Excuse me.

I stood in the hallway for a while and caught up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while. There was a man talking on a megaphone inside the auditorium, and we could see him but couldn't hear him. Word was being passed from person to person that there had been a mistake, that someone had been collecting the blue slips but wasn't supposed to be, so if you had given up your blue slip, you'd better get it back.

I went into the auditorium at this point to check it out, and it wasn't too full, there was just a large open space in the middle of the room separating the Hillary people (well-organized, tons of signs) from the Barack masses (young and old, lots of them, including every black person in the room). I remarked to a friend how strange it was that there was no public address system in the auditorium. He said that half an hour earlier, there had been a wireless microphone being used, but that it had gone missing, and that a guy made an announcement on the megaphone to please please if you had this microphone, give it back.

The line outside the building, visible from inside the auditorium, still snaked around the school. We were told, barely audibly through the megaphone, that once we got all these people in here we would caucus. And we were reminded that this was the first time we have ever done this so bear with us and thank you for your patience. The local newspaper web site reported that someone at my caucus location said he'd participated in walkathons that were better organized.

Questions like, "any idea when we can leave?" and "can I just turn in my blue slip and go home?" were met with answers like "no idea" and "if you leave you forfeit your vote."

So most people stuck around, as far as I could tell. Another announcement was made that if you had given up your blue slip, you should go back out to the lobby and re-claim it. I don't know how the process back out in the lobby worked, because I had not given up my blue slip, and hadn't been asked to give it up. Once during the confusion, it was announced that you should not give up your blue slip "until the second allotment," whatever that meant.

At around 11:00, an announcement was made that we'd probably be there another hour before we could caucus. An announcement was made that we would now be caucusing in the parking lot (still below freezing). Another microphone, though not the wireless one, was found and used for these announcements. The most curious thing to me was that various people were making announcements, and their claims to authority were not vague so much as they were completely unstated. The one elected official I recognized was Tom White, the state senator for our district. He made the announcement about the parking lot, and the final announcement about the emergency rule and the cardboard boxes (more on that later).

A very nice and seemingly well-informed lady told me that it's against the rules to caucus outside because anybody could just walk into a parking lot without being registered or anything. Good point. This lady worried that so many rules were being broken that the caucus wouldn't count.

The Douglas County Democrats made it hard on themselves in a few ways. One is that we caucused by legislative district, so there were only fifteen caucus sites in Douglas County (basically, Omaha). By contrast, there are 53 caucus sites this evening in Lancaster County (Lincoln area), which has a much smaller population. In Omaha, instead of going to one's regular polling place, a voter had to find out where to caucus from a web site. Instead of regular election workers and equipment, it was volunteer-run and ad hoc. It was a new and confusing process, at too few locations, at a busy time of day for most people (a Democrat friend of mine caught a flight at noon, another Democrat friend opens her bar at that time - no way either one could have participated at my caucus site).

Many people with small children were in attendance. There were also many senior citizens. Most had been standing, at least part of the time in the cold, for two hours. There were chairs in the auditorium, but not many, and plenty of people never made their way into the auditorium because they had been told it was full. Many young people sat on the floor or on the stage. Instead of any kind of back-and-forth about candidates or a platform, there were announcements and corrections of those announcements and pleas for patience.

Finally there was an announcement for those few people who hadn't reclaimed their blue slips after giving them up to (let's hope) a good-intentioned but misguided worker. Each name was read three times, "Bueller... Bueller... Bueller." Voices in the crowd shouted "They Left!," and it was clear that some had, but really not many.

Then Tom White made the final announcement, something like, 'we are invoking an emergency rule, as have other precincts, and instead of the caucus, the way you will make your preference known is that outside, there will be three boxes: one for Hillary Clinton, one for Barack Obama, and one for those who are uncommitted. There will be one Clinton campaign representative and one Obama campaign representative standing by each box. Please be patient and form an orderly line to go outside, drop your all-important blue slip into the right box, and then you can go home.'

The one heartening thing was that during the final announcement, the applause-o-meter for Hillary was at about 2 and for Barack it was at about 12.

So everyone filed outside and dropped the precious blue slip into one of FOUR cardboard boxes sitting on the ground. Regular old boxes, improvised and unsecured. There were people watching you drop your slip, but who they were and what they wanted was undeclared. The reason there were four boxes was that the line for Obama was so long that they found another box and so there were two lines and two boxes for Obama.

So I think I participated in Nebraska's first-ever Democratic Party Caucus. It took about two and a half hours. I feel sorry for any first-time voter who thinks that's how it always (sort of) works. I hope they don't require my e-mail address to make my blue slip count. Oh yeah, and how the hell are they going to count those things? I didn't stick around to find out.

Comments

[poppaculture]

people who downplay a caucus, versus a primary, do not understand the dedication of time it takes to participate.
It's much easier to vote at a poll and move on with life.

Nebraska showed true dedication today.
As a former resident (who knows what it's like to be a Democrat in a red state, and who understands how Nebraska gets marginalized by the coasts as "flyover country"), I salute the Cornhusker State.

I'm proud the state could show the same savvy it did in 1968 when it voted for Bobby Kennedy.

[RichLiberal]

Right, it takes hours and personal fortitude to get your vote to count. Obviously swinging power to the young and strong, people who don't have other commitments etc. Fine, run your caucuses, but don't pretend they are balanced, because they are not. They are: Democracy and one man/woman one vote is too simple, let's change the rules. Why not go back to the days when women couldn't vote or you had to be a property owner to vote. Giving the advantage to young and non-working people is all you are doing with your "dedication of time" hurdle.

That is why I say it is a gimmick and fraud. Maybe you don't like my characterization. Obama's race baiting, generation-baiting, gender-baiting campaign makes me sick. But it's his right to run it and your right to support it. I'm putting my time, money, and any other resources I have to support Hillary, who will represent people who actually work for a living.

[HowardRoarke]

I never heard Bill Clinton whine about how unfair caucuses were when they gave him the nomination in 1992.

The caucus system has been in use for decades, and always worked. It is encountering this unprecedented strain because one of our two choices is generating excitement among the voting public, and they are getting involved like never before.

We are seeing record turnout in all these different states. That would be considered good news by all objective observers.

So why is it the extreme partisans in the Clinton camp are doing everything possible to downplay the significance of this great Democratic outcome? Oh right, because it doesn't help their candidate's campaign. How very sad.

[Space Monkey]

Clap! Clap! Point! Point!
Clap! Clap! Point! Point!
Clap! Clap! Point! Point!

[RichLiberal]

Right, Obama wins the farces by a landslide. Everything about his candidacy is gimmicks, trickery, and fraud. When he gets in a real state primary like New York(31), California(55), Michigan(17), Massachusetts(12), New Jersey(15), Tennessee(11), Florida(27), Arizona(10), Arkansas(6), NewHampshire(4), Oklahoma(7)he gets smashed by double digits.
Let's see, that's 195 electoral votes Hillary has already demonstrated she can win. We have Texas(34), Pennsylvania(21), and Ohio(20) coming up for 75 more electoral votes. If Hillary sweeps those 3, she will have won primaries in states with 270 electoral votes, the magic number required to win the Presidency.

So, hoopla around in Nebraska and Kansas, put on your party hats in Alabama and Alaska. At the end of the day the only big state Obama won was his home open primary Illinois (another gimmick), and by a whisker in Missouri. Everything else he's got is solid red states that will give zero electoral votes in Nov, plus a few disaffected liberal in Washington (more screwed up caucases) and Connecticut, where he campaigned for his mentor Joe (let's keep pounding Iraq) Lieberman.
The whole Obama candidacy is a fraud to disenfranchise working men and women.

[alkamm]

Friends, you can drag your feet, you can run your debunking mouths, but you can't stop Obama. At this Nebraska caucus you could see the faces of America and they were firmly on Obama's side.
Seated, looking mostly white and female, a sedate crowd of Hillary partisans, something like one in ten. The Obama crowd was full of young people, academics, union men, many many women, and in general faces that looked more like America in all its diversity.
I have never been more proud of a group of people than in these caucuses, and if you can't see this, step to the side and picture it.
This groundswell of people from all classes was breath-taking. Obama's coat tails will sweep the Republicans from their strangehold over the Congress, and real change is coming friends.
Hillary should begin writing the most eloquent concession speech to bring the party together so that it can exploit the strength of the astonishing, spirited Obama movement.
If Hillary can bring herself to concede to the political phenom we have with us, the country and the world will respect her and she can take a pivotal part in reclaiming the country.
Obama's coat tails will extend to every race in the nation, and he's the perfect candidate to exploit Howard Dean's brilliant strategy of building competitive organizations and support in all 50 states.
Hillary needs to help the landslide with every ounce of her grace and power.

[awb]

RichLiberal:
caucuses were developed by the Founding Fathers. This was the method of choice at the Philadelphie Conventions and the founding of democracy.

The "farce" you refer to was the basis of the constitution.
A caucus is paid for and sanctioned by the Political Parties and are open to people of other parties and independents. A primary is paid for by the state and a closed primary is only for registered party members.

Therefore the more accurate case to be made for caucuses is that they are a better reflection of the future general election and as they require MORE commitment a greater reflection of a candidates base of support.

New York, New Jersey and CA have voted democratic in general elections for years and will again - with a 50% split electorate - the candidate who will win the general election needs the south and some middle red states to win.

THAT IS WHY THE CAUCUSES ARE SO IMPORTANT -
and there are no DIEBOLD machines or other touch screen voting in a caucus
They are the real true voice of real true people

[sky2evan]

Richliberal:

You wouldn't be criticizing caucuses if Ms. Clinton were winning them.

Plus, you show your prejudices when you count MI and FL as Clinton wins, when obviously, they are *asterix wins. So take 44 electoral votes right off the table there.

Plus #2, Mr. Obama has won 9 primaries: AL, CT, DE, GA, IL, LA, MO, SC, and UT. And don't go with the race card, because only 4 of those states (AL, GA, LA, SC) have significant black populations.

It's not that Mr. Obama can't win primaries, and Ms. Clinton wins primaries. It's that Mr. Obama CAN win primaries - but he just does 10+ percentage points better, on average, in caucuses.

Furthermore, you're basing your whole analysis on the fact that since Clinton won her 8 states in DEMOCRATIC primaries, that she will win these same 8 states, plus TX, PA, and OH in a GENERAL ELECTION, which last I heard, also includes Republican and Independent voters.

IF Clinton wins TX in the Democratic primaries, that's really a far leap of logic to assume that she will win TX in the general. Same is true for TN, AZ, and OK which are traditionally Republican strongholds. FL is also a swing state in its own right, as are PA and OH. So even if Clinton sweeps these states, there is no guarantee she will sweep them in the general.

If you checked your tallies, you'd know that on average, 25% of registered voters or less in any given state actually voted in their state's primaries. So if the past is any indicator, we can expect general election turnout to be higher, at least 50% or over (2004 = 64%).

In any case, the "primary" point is, you can't make the assumption that since Clinton wins any given primary in a state, that she will necessarily win that state in the general. However, it's VERY safe to say that in most of the red states she got landslided in, she will probably lose in the general.

As a rich liberal, I would've thought you'd be able to see this.

[Ides]

With supporters like you no wonder he keeps winning caucuses.

[tjrourke]

I tried to register as a Democrat at the caucus in Sarpy County. There was only one site for the whole county - a high school that was also hosting ACT tests for students today. I heard from one diehard Democrat that most years there's only about 20 Democrats in the whole county. But though they expected 500 this time, thousands showed up and the Sarpy County Democratic Party showed how ill-prepared they were.

They had people move from this room to that room; every now and then someone would start up a chorus of mooing. Everybody filed shoulder-to-shoulder up and down a narrow hallway just to get to the table to find out where to go. They ran out of the cards (they were yellow here) several times.

Tables were placed too close together in the hallway and people were shouting incomprehensible instructions. They sent people first in one direction, then another, then called out room numbers like we all knew where the rooms were in the building. The barkers didn't have any microphones. Like your description of Monroe, we had no indication of who knew what was going on either - not even colored vests for volunteers or officials.

When they ran out of voter registration forms, I left and kept my registration as nonpartisan. I wish it would have been managed properly. Even for their first time this was a complete cluster. The only reason I might have stuck it out was if there would have been a vote to fire the people who planned the event.

But hey, it's the Democrats. I bet the Republicans would have been shooting people.

[RogerHWerner]

Sounds like a real cluster fuck. I showed up to cast my vote and was out in less than 5 minutes. It seems as if there has to be a better way for people to vote than to go what you went through. I'm glad you got to stay but wonder about those who couldn't and will they ever come back.

[alkamm]

Despite efforts by the Hillary partisans, the decision was made to collect all blue ballots of those inside and outside. So many people registered, many young people for the first time, and they were not doing so to vote for Hillary.
I spoke with several people who were undecided who came to the Obama side, if practically the whole auditorium and outdoors can be termed a side.
This cluster fuck showed the determination of Nebraskans to show they support and share the vision of a truly historic moment in our political history. People waited patiently, milled about and exchanged their hopes and fears.
So. Everybody who had an extra hour stayed. That's a caucus. And nobody was supressed, nor will they be in the general election when Obama sweeps all 50 states.
Even the south.
Imagine. Well, you don't have to imagine if you look to the side of your reason and grasp what so many people intuit.
Let me tell you brother, all these voters will come back, and they are the very tippest of this iceberg.
The Obama campaign has legs, and it knows how to use them.
Can I get a witness!

[vsign]

Caucus's should not allowed. Redo all caucus's so the real voters have a vote in a primary. Primaries in all states. NO MORE CAUCUS's.

[awb]

VSign

caucus = real live people and accurate reflection of their voting preference

primary = diebold

why are you calling for no more caucuses??

[sky2evan]

vsign is an avid Clinton supporter, and is understandably upset that Ms. CLinton got landslided on Saturday. S/he is trying to find an answer as to why Ms. Clinton lost so badly, and is looking for a target to blame. So s/he is blaming caucuses... even though, of course, Mr. Obama has also won 9 primaries.

Personally, I think caucuses are great to counter voter fraud. From a caucus, you can know how everybody voted and what the final tally for your precinct is. But with private ballots, whether machine or hand-counted, ballots can be manipulated, stolen, lost, etc.

[ChuckFitz]

I'm a volunteer for the Douglas County Dem Party and was on the Caucus Committee as we worked on this for the previous year. It was an enormous undertaking and it has only been recently that we've had the infrastructure a metropolitan of 400,000 to 500,000 needs to function properly. I'm not trying to make excuses, but six weeks ago we thought there'd be 200-300 people per L.D. (legislative district). We knew the numbers would be higher in the last two weeks, but not an average of 1000 for all 15 L.D.

I was at a different L.D. that went much smoother. We had a little over a 1000 people. Our lines weren't nearly as bad as the Monroe School's. As you explain, they got slammed. And boy, I wish it could have turned out better.

My experience was...an experience. I was registering people and handing out the blue cards. People were patient, happy to be there, and very understanding. It truly made me smile to be involved in the process. Once the caucus began, it ran smoothly, although looking out at 1000 people I had the 'deer in the headlights' look. I wasn't expecting this, but the electricity was in the air and made me smile to myself. Being a Nebraska Democrat felt great again.

In regards to the problems we experienced, well we have a lot to learn. More caucus sites, more intimate settings, more accommodation for elderly and handicapped.
We did our best with the resources we had, which were limited.

p.s.: Reports from Seattle are coming out that they've been running out of paper ballots in some of they're caucus (cauci?). Seems to be contagious.

[alkamm]

What a grand problem! Running out of paper ballots because of unprecedented rush of people to take part in taking the country back from the same old tired pols who have divided us so long.
The people have made a very important decision to back Obama. His supporters have a sense that he'll change this country dramatically and forcefully.
Rather than debunk Obama's invocation of Ronald Reagan, Nebraska voters can see that Obama will unite the country from both sides of the political spectrum, all states red and blue, and sweep the field.
The times, my friends, are a changin.

[MPeter]

Good job. Guys like you confirm that there is HOPE for America; that there is a new and brighter future after all. Thank you.

[sweetuniverse]

Thanks for sharing this--and for sticking it out there!

[YellerDawg]

Cuba's electoral process is more organized, for God's sake. Only in America.