• Jan. 20, 2004
• By Shawn
• In Politics
• 7 Comments
• 0

So I was curious. I really didn’t know how the whole caucus thing worked. There was a handy little link (http://slate.msn.com/id/2094034/). Everything was looking pretty straight-forward. Then, I got to this part:

“Next the chair translates this vote count into a delegate count. Every viable group gets at least one delegate. The bigger your group, the more delegates you can earn. But there are two catches. First, the number of delegates to be distributed in the room depends on how many Democrats voted in your precinct in the most recent gubernatorial and presidential elections. If you’re new in town, and the turnout in your precinct was lousy four years ago, your vote effectively counts less than it would have if you’d moved to a high-turnout precinct. Second, if your group is bigger than another group in the room, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll get more delegates. Let’s say the chair has six delegates to distribute, and there are four viable groups. That leaves two extra delegates, which will probably go to the two biggest groups. If you’re in the third-biggest group, and you’ve got more people than the fourth group does, tough luck. You each get a delegate, and that’s that.”

This is how our almighty American election process starts. Somehow, this is democracy. Have you noticed that every country that the U.S. has democratized or helped in a government overthrow/rebuilding is completely fucked? Ever wonder why? I think I’m getting warm on an answer.

About 10 minutes ago, I was trying to figure out what the results of last night’s Iowa caucus really mean. Now, I’m trying to figure out if I’m mentally capable of voting, if this is the cornerstone to our election system.

It’s way too early for this.