The 2020 presidential election officially begins tonight at 8 p.m. ET across the state of Iowa.
Iowans care more about health care by a long shot over other issues.41% Health care21% Climate change17% Income inequality14% Foreign policy
Why you will hear realignment:
First comes the aptly named first round.That’s when caucus participants break into their presidential candidate preference groups, moving to one part of the room to indicate support for a certain candidate. After that happens, each group is counted. A candidate typically needs 15% of the vote to be viable (aka make it to the next round). If a candidate doesn’t meet the 15% threshold, those participants can then realign (get it?) to support another candidate. The Iowa Democratic party’s new rules now say only participants with non-viable candidates can realign. That realignment process happens until the final round, when all candidate groups meet 15%. Then, the caucus precinct chair determines how many county delegates are assigned to each candidate group.The winner of the Iowa caucuses is based off the delegate allocation, rather than popular vote (similar to the electoral college).
A source told CNN that the Democratic Party has encountered problems with an app that should “transmit vote totals from precincts to state headquarters.” More:
Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Mandy McClure tells CNN that, from the beginning, party officials have been prepared to deal with issues of human error and poor cell service as they arise. The app is not the only option to forward precinct vote totals.
“The IDP is working with any precinct chairs who want to use the optional tabulation application to make sure they are comfortable with it,” McClure said. “We’ve always been aware that many precinct chairs prefer to call in results via a secure hotline, and have systems in place so they can do so.”
Linda Nelson, a chairperson for the Pottawattamie County’s Democratic party, posted a call for help on Facebook:
“I still cannot get my caucus app to work. I get to the point of adding my precinct PIN from the math worksheet, I continue to get the error message. What am I doing wrong?”
While precinct totals may be transmitted with the mobile app, the party is using presidential preference cards for each voter to create a paper backup system for tonight’s caucuses.
The state Democratic party organization oversees tonight’s contest.
I still don’t fully understand caucuses:
Delegates are awarded based on those who reach a certain threshold of support by the end of the night.For the Democratic caucuses, voters will split up into different sections of the room dedicated to their presidential candidate of choice. Typically, a candidate needs 15% of the vote to remain viable, as determined by the amount of people participating in the precinct location. Smaller locations may have different viability thresholds.If a candidate is not viable, their voters can realign to another viable candidate or join together to create a group in support of another candidate that meets the threshold.Iowa Republican caucusgoers will vote by secret ballot, not by standing up in different groups like Iowa Democratic caucusgoers.
It takes place in 1,678 caucus locations along with 87 satellite locations. They even have one in Tbilisi, Georgia!
The Democrats have a chance of getting 41 delegates.
Apparently they learned from the Master:
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