How safe is the caucus vote from tampering/hacking/Diebolding?

[begin_within]

Can it be screwed up like everything else can?

[Buzz Clik]

1. Huh? It's a caucus...

[begin_within]

3. They still have to be added up

[Buzz Clik]

4. Unless I've misunderstood everything I've heard about it...

... there are no voting machines at all.

I think that the chances of funny business are near zero.

[Double T]

2. America: Land of Rigged Voting Equipment

When we can't even get our voting equipment right, we KNOW we're living in a failed nation.

[durrrty libby]

5. Well here is an interesting article about the 04 caucus

"Why you'll never know who won Iowa By William Saletan and Matt Schiller


The Vanishing If you liked the Florida recount, you'll love the Iowa caucuses."


http://www.slate.com/id/2094034/

[SheilaT]

6. People assemble in groups.

They are counted. The numbers are reported to a central location. I suppose those at the central location could change the numbers, but at some point you have to trust others.

And, (this is what confuses a lot of people) the caucuses themselves are only the first of several steps in deciding exactly how many delegates for each candidate will eventually go to the national convention. I know here in Kansas there's an intermediate step between the caucus and the national convention, and I expect that's true in Iowa also.

[wellstone dem]

9. As I understand it, each local subcaucus

i.e. the biden subcaucus will elect a delegate to the state or county convention. The delegates are allocated by an immediate count which everyone at the caucus can see,and the delegates are then elected. It would be very difficult to diebold the process.

[SheilaT]

10. It does vary somewhat from state to state.

in 2004, here in Kansas, we selected delegates from each candidate's group to go on to the next level. At the next level we again caucused and selected delegates to the national convention. I caucused for Dean, was a delegate to the second level, but another person was selected to be the Dean delegate to the national convention.

This year, here in Kansas, the actual delegate selection to the national convention will be made (as I currently understand it) by the state party, and to be considered as a delegate you have to write a letter declaring your intention to become a delegate.

Another difference between Kansas and Iowa is that in Iowa the caucuses occur at the precinct level. Here in Kansas they occur at the state Senate district level. We have 40 state senators in this state.

I will definitely be attending my caucus, and I will probably write a letter of intent to be a delegate to the national convention.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. Generally, very safe

In most caucuses (at least, the ones to which I've gone), they use a process of "standing" for a candidate, ie "People supporting candidate A, go stand over there. People supporting candidate B, over there. If you are undeclared, stand over there." If a candidate does not receive a minimum number of people, that candidate is dropped and everyone is allowed to regroup for the remaining candidates. This continues until all of the candidates have the minimum and all of the caucus attendees are standing for one of the candidates (including Undeclared.) There is no possible way this could be rigged, as you can bet that at least half the folks there are taking notes of each tally.

My understanding is that the results of the caucuses get transferred up the food chain, and that the results are pretty public (at the least, PCOs have access, and again, you can bet there are people keeping track.) With a little networking, it is pretty easy to get the results of all the caucuses independently of whatever release is made by the state party. Any significant discrepancies would be noted and loudly questioned.

The only way to rig a caucus is to arrange for them to happen in secret, ie open only to party members loyal to the candidate you are trying to fix. Most states, if not all, require that the date, time and location of all caucuses be published in newspapers of record and otherwise easily accessable by the public, and requires that all party members be allowed to attend and fully participate. In states like Washington that do not have registration by party, ALL people who attend and declare themselves to be affiliated with the party must be allowed to attend and fully participate.

All in all, caucuses would be very difficult to rig. The process is too public and too transparent.

[scarletwoman]

8. No, it can't be "screwed up", everyone's vote is out in the open.

A caucus is basically a bunch of people sitting a room. They open the meeting, and then split up into groups by candidate. The number of people in each candidate group determines how many delegates that candidate gets for the state convention. There is a maximum number of delegates for each precinct, so candidates who don't get enough people in their group won't get any delegates.

Caucuses are horse-trading affairs. If your candidate doesn't have enough people in his/her group to qualify for a delegate, other candidate groups will try to negotiate with you to come over to their side and boost their delegate count.

There are no voting machines involved, there's actually no secret ballots at all. Everyone declares out front who they want to support, and then people work the room (so to speak) to bring more people into their group.

It's a very open system, there's absolutely NO possibility of a rigged vote -- all that can happen is negotiated votes.

sw