Vorwahlen in Iowa

In diesem Jahr sind in den USA Präsidentschaftswahlen (Mann, bin ich jetzt schon lange hier – ich kann mich an die Schlangen vor den Wahllokalen in San Francisco erinnern, für die Wahl, in der Obama Dubbya ablöste). Gestern fanden die ersten Vorwahlen der Republikaner in Iowa statt. Ich lese mich gerade in das Wahlmänner- und Caucuses- und Primary-Konzept ein, mit dem hier die Kandidaten bestimmt werden – sobald ich das verstanden habe, schreibe ich einen eigenen Blogpost darüber.

Inzwischen weiß ich, daß Iowa zwar nur ein Prozent der Delegierten stellt, aber als Stimmungsbarometer ungeschlagen ist. Man veranstaltet sogenannte “caucuses” (in jedem der 1774 Bezirke), in Kirchen, Schulen, Bibliotheken, manchmal sogar Privathaushalten, wo – wenn es Republikaner sind – Wahlberechtigte (sog. “Voter”) den Namen ihres Favoriten auf ein weißes Blatt Papier schreiben. Das wird dann irgendwo gesammelt, gezählt und veröffentlicht. Bei den Demokraten ist der Prozeß ungleich komplexer, wenn jemand nachlesen will findet er den Auszug aus dem Wikipedia-Artikel am unteren Ende des Blogposts in Kursivschrift.

Wie ist es ausgegangen? Mitt Romney lag 8 Stimmen vor Rick Santorum (beide 25%), dritter war der Texaner Ron Paul mit 21%. Da aber das “The Winner takes it all”-Prinzip nicht mehr in allen Bundesstaaten gilt (dazu später mehr, das muß ich noch im Detail recherchieren), gehen sie alle ungefähr gleich stark in die nächsten Vorwahlen nach New Hampshire.

Aber eigentlich wollte ich was ganz anderes erzählen: Iowa hat wieder von allen Medien sein Fett als Kartoffel-Hillbilly-Fly-over State abbekommen. Das lassen die Iowans (oder auch “Hawkeyes”) aber nicht länger auf sich sitzen: http://bit.ly/sWtQs1

Recht so. Dieser Blogpost ist im übrigen Lena M. gewidmet, die das schon lange vor uns allen gewußt hat.

source Wikipedia:
Democratic Party process
The process used by the Democrats is more complex than the Republican Party caucus process. Each precinct divides its delegate seats among the candidates in proportion to caucus goers’ votes. Participants indicate their support for a particular candidate by standing in a designated area of the caucus site (forming a preference group). An area may also be designated for undecided participants. Then, for roughly 30 minutes, participants try to convince their neighbors to support their candidates. Each preference group might informally deputize a few members to recruit supporters from the other groups and, in particular, from among those undecided. Undecided participants might visit each preference group to ask its members about their candidate.

After 30 minutes, the electioneering is temporarily halted and the supporters for each candidate are counted. At this point, the caucus officials determine which candidates are viable. Depending on the number of county delegates to be elected, the viability threshold is 15% of attendees. For a candidate to receive any delegates from a particular precinct, he or she must have the support of at least the percentage of participants required by the viability threshold. Once viability is determined, participants have roughly another 30 minutes to realign: the supporters of inviable candidates may find a viable candidate to support, join together with supporters of another inviable candidate to secure a delegate for one of the two, or choose to abstain. This realignment is a crucial distinction of caucuses in that (unlike a primary) being a voter’s second candidate of choice can help a candidate.

When the voting is closed, a final head count is conducted, and each precinct apportions delegates to the county convention. These numbers are reported to the state party, which counts the total number of delegates for each candidate and reports the results to the media. Most of the participants go home, leaving a few to finish the business of the caucus: each preference group elects its delegates, and then the groups reconvene to elect local party officers and discuss the platform.

The delegates chosen by the precinct then go to a later caucus, the county convention, to choose delegates to the district convention and state convention. Most of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention are selected at the district convention, with the remaining ones selected at the state convention. Delegates to each level of convention are initially bound to support their chosen candidate but can later switch in a process very similar to what goes on at the precinct level; however, as major shifts in delegate support are rare, the media declares the candidate with the most delegates on the precinct caucus night the winner, and relatively little attention is paid to the later caucuses.