RTFM

[Read This Fine Material] from Joshua Hoblitt

Democratic Chaos ’08

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I went to my first caucus meeting ever this evening. It was the Democratic caucuses for Hawaii Congressional District: 1, District 22, Precinct: 02. Although I have mixed feelings about associating myself with a political party, I was forced to register with the Democratic party at the door. And that door took about 50 minutes in line just to reach. On the other side was total chaos. Nobody knew who was in charge or who was supposed to be doing what. Someone announced on the PA that in 2004 only 40 people showed up to this caucus. My guestimate is that there were on the order of 400 people in the room and yet more outside. I’m guessing that 100’s more left because of the long lines and disorganization. Speaking of disorganization, they ran out of ballots, then tried to apparently photocopy more… After a failed attempt to heard us into Clinton/Obama/other campus within our precints, they ended up resorting to cutting up legal pads and having us write our district/precinct on them and our candidate of choice. No name, no checking of id, no authentication what so ever. I was given a big pile of paper scraps too. I predict that pull box stuffing was rampant. Or perhaps *is* rampant as they are supposedly going to hold the caucus open until everyone has a chance to vote (presumably that means vote at least once, yarr). Geoff and I had good enough sense to bail before the local precinct seats and delegate elections started.

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