Somebody explain to me how the voting in the Presidential primaries works

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-- Somebody explain to me how the voting in the Presidential primaries works

Posted by George Smiley on Jan-03-2008 20:20:

Somebody explain to me how the voting in the Presidential primaries works

OK, I get that each state have a vote to see which Republican candidate and which Democrat candidate they want, but I can't get my head around who gets to vote and why!

In the UK, only members of a political party can vote for who they want as leader, deputy etc etc. Is this how it works in America too to decide who they want as their Presidential candidate because from what I have read, it seems like it's a vote by the general public of each state.

Some of my colleagues said that every member of the public registers to vote as either a Democrat or Republican, is that right? That when you put your name on the electoral register you also have to state which party you will vote for?! If that is right, do you only get to choose between Democrat and Republican? Are there no other parties you can register for?

Or are my colleagues wrong and it is in fact just the membership of the party that gets to vote in Primaries?

Any explanation would be appreciated!

Posted by Capitalizt on Jan-04-2008 01:01:

Every state is different basically. Indendents can vote in some states for either party, while in other states you must be registered in a certain party to vote for them. The primary dates are different for many states. And some states have normal primaries where you can vote throughout the day, and other states of "caucuses" where you can only vote within a certain window at a certain location.

It's an absolute mess really...I hate our system. The whole "caucus" idea is mindblowingly dumb.

From Wikipedia:

"The Iowa caucus is an electoral event in which residents of the U.S. state of Iowa elect delegates to the county convention to which their precinct belongs in a caucus. There are 99 counties in Iowa and thus 99 conventions. These county conventions then select delegates for both Iowa's Congressional District Convention and the State Convention, which eventually choose the delegates for the presidential nominating conventions (the national conventions)."

So basically, rather than simply having a statewide vote throughout the day and having the winner get the state delegates, every county in the state has a big "convention" at night where people need to drive to the meeting location in their county, listen to speeches for a few hours, THEN they vote on who gets the delegates..

Posted by DJ Shibby on Jan-04-2008 01:40:

It's pretty simple really.

You can do a search on buffer overflows and backdoors on google to find out more.

Posted by Krypton on Jan-04-2008 01:58:

If anyone wants to vote in the election, they have to register; which many people do when they get a driver's license or whatever.

You choose a party to be registered with, then when the primaries come around, primary ballots come in the mail (I got one last week), and voters choose who they want to be the Republican candidate or Democrat candidate.

Iowa is first, for some odd reason. It's just a bunch of farmers and truckers, why do they get to vote first?

Posted by pkcRAISTLIN on Jan-04-2008 02:28:

im with you george. i think the system is needlessly complicated and the whole 3 tiers of government (president, house, senate) to be dumb.

the more i learn about the US the more i worship westminster!

Posted by verndogs on Jan-04-2008 02:31:

Best explanation of the Primaries in the US is provided by the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7049207.stm