Before I moved to Colorado 2005, I lived in Massachusetts where I always voted in primary elections. These were not mail-in ballots, but elections with many convenient polling places and they all stayed opened until early evening.
In 2008 I went to my first caucus in Denver, Colorado. It was held at 7:00 PM, in the gym of a local high school. We were seated in sections arranged by our address. There were people there with signs for candidates and two people led our group. After some brief discussion and a tentative vote, we lined up in groups for Hilary Clinton and Obama and were counted. I think there were far less people there than if it had been an election.
Out of 129,411 Democratic caucus votes statewide, 1,260 were uncommitted and 199 voted for candidates other than Clinton and Obama. Obama won with 80,113 (66.6%) to Clinton’s 38,83 (32.3%). In the Republican caucus out of a total statewide vote of 70,229, Romney got 60.1% of the vote. McCain came in second with 18.4% followed by Huckabee with 12.8%
On March 16, 2010 I attended my second caucus. This time Michael Bennet, former Denver school superintendent (who had been appointed Senator when Ken Salazar was appointed to cabinet) was running against Andrew Romanoff. I favored Romanoff. Shortly before the caucus, a local paper reported on Bennet’s costly funding of the Denver Public Schools with J.P. Morgan. (Bennet “Swap” costs DPS millions)
This time there were five or six young Denver teachers in my group favor of Bennet. When we discussed issues, I brought up the interest that his deal had cost DPS. They knew nothing about it and thought I was talking about credit card interest. Romanoff won by a large margin statewide but lost in the election.