Cody Staub

As a follow up to my post on Thursday and as a precursor to Super Tuesday tomorrow, I wanted to try and explain the difference between a primary election and a caucus. It turns out in speaking with our county clerk since Thursday that Idaho (where I live) utilizes both a Democratic caucus and a Republican primary. The caucus is tomorrow (February 5th) and the primary is May 27th, so it looks like I won’t be voting until May.

So what’s the difference? And why the two voting dates?

To answer the first question, a primary election is run much like the general election in November. Each person is given a ballot and that ballot is cast in secret. A caucus is usually where members of the political party gather into groups according to their candidate preference. I’m a little sketchy on the caucus process, but my understanding is that this is not a private ballot, nor is it very accurate, but merely to get an idea of who the delegates should support. The state laws usually govern whether the voting process is opened or closed, meaning that if you vote in one election/caucus you cannot vote in another (closed).

Each party can choose to have either a caucus or a primary election and when it takes place. In Idaho, the democratic party has chosen a caucus to be held on February 5th and the republicans have chosen a primary election to be held May 27th. Both of these elections are open in Idaho, meaning I could go to the democratic caucus tomorrow and also vote in the primary on May 27th.

I still encourage everyone to get out and vote. This is going to be a very charged election.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.