Hello everyone. I'm back from my caucus, and I thought I'd provide a little info on how things went. I don't have exact numbers, but I'll let you know how it went below the jump.
I'm here in Federal Way, the 7th largest city in the state with over 80,000 residents. I caucused at one of the local middle schools. Ironically, it was the school I went to when I was a kid. Ah, memories; the place hasn't changed a bit, too. Anyway, the place was packed.
I would guess we had around 400 or so voters at our particular precinct. We got started at around 1pm, and began the process in earnest at 1:30p. I was designated at the caucus chair for my local precinct (of which there were many, broken up by address), so I got the process started after getting instructions for the Area Caucus Chair.
After the speech. I got started. I called the caucus to order and went through the instructions. There were exactly twenty people in my mini-precinct and we started off by signing people in.
The Washington caucus consists of two votes. The first is the preliminary count. After this, we can switch from one candidate to another, and we then have the final tally. We then figure out (with a math formula), how many delegates we will pledge to the candidates.
As I said, we had exactly twenty voters. The first vote was Obama 18 (!), Clinton 2. Our mini-precinct had 4 deligates to send, and based on the math, Obama got all four. The second vote didn't change any minds, so Obama shut her out.
Talking with a Hillary supporter, it appeared that she won only one mini-precinct. Most of the others were Obama wins or ties. So at my local precinct, Obama will likely win convincingly.
I think Obama wins this precinct, which is a little surprising. The demographics I think would favor Hillary slightly (decent sized elderly population; though there were two voters in my group over 70 who voted for Obama(!), and very working class though fairly affluent). But I'm still fired up!