What Is the Caucus System?
A caucus is a meeting organized at a local level in order to pick candidates for a political party. Caucuses and primary elections serve the same function (both choose between candidates within a political party), but voters discuss and debate candidates at a caucus, as opposed to privately casting a ballot at primaries. The caucus has a long tradition in the American political system, but its importance has been giving way to primary elections.
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History
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The caucus began as a mechanism to use the popular vote to indirectly elect politicians, according to historians George Tindall and David Shi. Voters would assemble in a town caucus and elect a delegate to cast a vote at the county, state or national level. In this way, the elite hoped to restrict the majority of voting power to well-educated and economically-important community members, even after universal suffrage.
Primaries vs. Caucuses
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Prior to 1972, most states used caucuses. While caucuses are still dominated by party activists, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, they used to be closed-doors meetings that only party insiders were allowed to attend. Following the 1968 presidential election, the Democratic Party made a series of recommendations to make caucusing more open, but many states simply switched to primary elections.
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System
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Nineteen states use caucuses in the presidential nomination process. Meetings are organized for each political party at a local level, and any registered voter within the caucus district may attend. At the caucus, voters discuss their preferred candidates and choose delegates to defend and vote for these candidates at the next level (county, state, or national).
Democratic and Republican
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In Democratic caucuses, delegates are distributed based on percentages of voters. For example, District A can elect four delegates; candidate X gets 50 percent of the vote, while candidates X and Y each get 25 percent. Thus, candidate X gets two delegates while Y and Z each get one. A candidate needs at least 15 percent of the vote to earn delegates to the next level. In most Republican caucuses, the candidate with the most votes gets all of the delegates to the next round.
Other Meanings
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Caucus can also mean "a group of people united to promote an agreed-upon cause", according to the Miriam-Webster dictionary. The other use of the word 'caucus' in American politics is the Congressional caucus, which refers to special groups in Congress where representatives meet to discuss policy and issues on a specific topic.
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References
- Photo Credit meeting image by Tribalstar from Fotolia.com
