Saturday, January 19, 2008

A first hand experience of the US election

Today I really got a first hand experience of the American presidential election. I got the opportunity to observe both a Republican and a Democratic caucus (procedure to elect presidential candidates). It was the first time Nevada had done the caucus and it had been lots of talk and speculation on how it would turn out (not only the election result in it self, but the procedure).

It was a very interesting experience! We started out with a Republican caucus. It was... complete chaos... 14 different precincts (valdistrikt) were negotiating in the sports hall of Reno High School... It was extremely noisy, and I'm surprised the participants could here the instructions. After about an hour they had all choosen their delegates and done their bid for their preferred presidential candidate however. I think.

The Democratic caucus an hour later was much more organized. Clear instructions, only one precinct in each room. It was much more easier to observer. All the 126 member in our room divided in groups during 15 minutes, each group supporting the different candidates. Groups with less than 15% (19 people in our case) were not "valid" and it's group members had to choose different groups or exit. Lot's of cheering, yelling, and arguing between the different groups. In the end, Obama got 55 votes, Clinton 50 and Edwards 20. But since the votes were divided into delegates to the Democratic convention, and this specific precinct only had 7 delegates, Obama got 3, Clinton got 3 and Edwards 1...

In the end of the day Clinton claimed the victory of the Nevada election with about 50% of the Democratic votes. Mitt Romney won the Republican vote. Who will be the presidential candidates in the end... well.. who knows... The race is sure on.

4 comments:

Annika said...

Vad kul att du fick vara med!! Måste ha varit urspännande!
Och jag säger , go Hill go!! Blev så glad när jag såg resultatet!

JaCal said...

Annika - ja, det var det verkligen! Känns otroligt priviligerande att ha fått varit med och observerat - jättekul!

Hairy Swede said...

men Obama tog 13 delegates och hillary fick bara 12

JaCal said...

The Hairy Swede - helt riktigt - men när jag skrev var det fortfarande inte helt klart vem som skulle vinna delegats-fördelningen - och den har ju varit underlag för rätt (hätsk) diskussion här - mycket anklagelser fram och tillbaka. Blir verkligen intressant att se vem som kommer dra ifrån här de närmaste veckorna.