NPI boardmembers reflect on their 2016 Democratic presidential caucus experiences

Edi­tor’s Note: Although NPI is not affil­i­at­ed with a polit­i­cal par­ty, does not endorse can­di­dates, and does not engage in elec­tion­eer­ing for or against any can­di­date, NPI’s lead­ers are involved in Demo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics as indi­vid­u­als, and par­tic­i­pat­ed in this morn­ing’s Wash­ing­ton pres­i­den­tial precinct caucuses. 

As our board­mem­bers each reside in a dif­fer­ent precinct in the Puget Sound area, we asked them to share a few words about their cau­cus expe­ri­ence. The com­men­tary and report­ing that fol­lows reflects the per­son­al views of each indi­vid­ual mem­ber of the board, and not NPI as a whole. 

NPI Direc­tor Gael Tar­leton, report­ing from SEA 36–2511:

What a great morn­ing! I walked into North Beach Ele­men­tary at 9:20 am, and precincts were divid­ed into two large spaces. By 9:45 it was stand­ing room only in the gym, so my precinct and 2 oth­ers were des­ig­nat­ed to relo­cate to the school library.

Turnout was aston­ish­ing — hun­dreds of peo­ple, maybe as many as 700? I did­n’t have time to go into every sin­gle one of the cau­cus areas but esti­mat­ed about 300–350 in the gym.

It was so fun — fifty-nine peo­ple of all ages cau­cused in my precinct. Some brought their kids or grand­kids. Some were long-time res­i­dents and some had just moved to Seat­tle from oth­er states. Mona McPhee, our PCO/Caucus Chair, did not arrive until 10:20 AM. The group had elect­ed me to serve as Cau­cus Chair in case she did­n’t show. But she did make it, and did a fan­tas­tic job run­ning the cau­cus. I was appoint­ed Precinct Sec­re­tary to take the offi­cial min­utes. Three oth­ers vol­un­teered to do bal­lot count­ing and tal­ly­ing of delegates.

Then we did speech­es. Bernie sup­port­ers split up their 3 min­utes com­ments between two speak­ers. A total of 6 peo­ple spoke for Hillary (very eco­nom­i­cal use of words!).

No one changed their pre­ferred can­di­date after the speech­es, so the orig­i­nal vote count stood: 33 for Hillary at 56 per­cent, 26 for Bernie at 44 per­cent, none uncommitted.

The cau­cus­es quick­ly select­ed their del­e­gates and alter­nates — 3 del­e­gates for Hillary, 1 del­e­gate for Bernie. A few of our cau­cus goers did not agree with the for­mu­la being used to allo­cate our 4 del­e­gates‎. We did all the tal­ly­ing and allo­ca­tion deci­sions in front of the caucus.

Before we adjourned, one of the del­e­gates asked that we all com­mit to vot­ing for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty nom­i­nee. She said, Please don’t decide to not vote if your choice is not the nom­i­nee. We are Democ­rats and we must vote. This elec­tion may decide the fate of our democ­ra­cy and every­one needs to vote. We all applaud­ed and said “Yes”!

We adjourned at 11:22 AM.

Many thanks to the 36th Dis­trict Demo­c­ra­t­ic vol­un­teers who ran the North Beach Cau­cus­es! It’s a lot of work and things went smooth­ly, espe­cial­ly in light of the huge turnout.

NPI Pres­i­dent Robert Cruick­shank, report­ing from SEA 36–2520:

It was clear from the first cau­cus­go­ers to show up to our precinct meet­ing at Whit­man Mid­dle School in North­west Seat­tle that Bernie was going to have a big day, and that’s how it turned out. The final count in our precinct was 59 votes for Bernie and 15 for Hillary, which pro­duced a 5–1 split among our precinct’s delegates.

As we got the cau­cus under way, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Noel Frame — cel­e­brat­ing her birth­day today by chair­ing her precinct’s cau­cus — led the entire room in a rous­ing chant of “this is what democ­ra­cy looks like!” and urged par­tic­i­pants to con­tin­ue the fight for pro­gres­sive val­ues in down­bal­lot races.

She got a very pos­i­tive recep­tion to that impor­tant message.

We had a reveal­ing moment at our precinct cau­cus. There was one vote for “uncom­mit­ted,” and she took her 3 min­utes to ask sup­port­ers of both can­di­dates if they would com­mit to vot­ing for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date in Novem­ber — even if that can­di­date wasn’t the one they sup­port­ed today. Every sin­gle one of the precinct cau­cus par­tic­i­pants raised their hands.

Despite Repub­li­can hopes, our par­ty will be unit­ed to stop whichev­er extrem­ist the GOP nom­i­nates for pres­i­dent this year.

NPI Direc­tor Mario Brown, report­ing from Edmonds 40: 

My precinct, Edmonds 40, had 57 total bal­lots. I assigned a tal­ly clerk and Sec­re­tary. My neigh­bors were there ear­ly and en masse. We could not all fit in the hall for the 10 AM intro­duc­to­ry speech.

I was asked to give the dona­tion pitch. I asked who was ready for Hillary and got applause and the I asked with was feel­ing the Bern and got thun­der­ous applause.

Then we broke into our precincts and I col­lect­ed all the forms.

We did a count and told the group the results, peo­ple con­tin­ued to come in before the final count and we are very proud to say the we count­ed every vote. We did allow speech­es while the count was being done, but no one switched. ‎

In the end, we had 5 del­e­gates and Bernie got 4 and Hillary got 1. Every­one left feel­ing heard and includ­ed and ready do more.

NPI Trea­sur­er Essie Hicks, report­ing from ISS 05–2806:

I have been prepar­ing for the Issaquah Mid­dle School Area Cau­cus for sev­er­al months because I was help­ing to run it with my good friend Ava Frisinger, who has led sev­er­al cau­cus­es. I had the sup­port of great peo­ple in the 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict, who met fre­quent­ly to train each oth­er on how to suc­cess­ful­ly run a cau­cus, and famil­iar­ize our­selves with all of the forms. I loved meet­ing new friends along this learn­ing process and talk­ing with Hillary and Bernie supporters.

My morn­ing start­ed at 7 AM. I packed my car full of all my sup­plies, equip­ment, and dou­ble checked my check­list. I showed up as ear­ly as Issaquah Mid­dle School would allow me to, and start­ed set­ting up a sign in desk out­side, a white­board with sug­ges­tions, polit­i­cal mate­ri­als, and start­ed putting vol­un­teer but­tons on ear­ly arrivals.

I was so grate­ful to get so many will­ing and help­ing hands. We all set up the tables, precinct signs, and tech­nol­o­gy togeth­er and before I knew it the room was full of peo­ple try­ing to find their precinct.

Web­sites were down, peo­ple were milling around with their smart­phones, the Infor­ma­tion Desk was full, and we were all work­ing togeth­er to help each oth­er. Every­one was helping.

I was so hap­py to meet peo­ple who were just observ­ing. They were not eli­gi­ble to vote. They just want­ed to be there and see how it hap­pened. They were just hap­py to help.

Some peo­ple came too late, and that made me real­ly sad, because I could see how much they real­ly want­ed to participate.

We suc­cess­ful­ly closed our cau­cus and stayed lat­er with precincts who need­ed extra help. We dis­cussed res­o­lu­tions and cleaned up togeth­er. Peo­ple helped me pack my van, and many vol­un­teers stayed with me until every sin­gle thing was done. After the car was packed, I drove to Car­na­tion where 5th Dis­trict Cau­cus lead­ers kept rolling.

We unpacked all of our gear and our dis­trict lead­ers had every­thing laid out so we could sort through every­thing, tal­ly our results and get them into the State Par­ty. Our lit­tle band of 5th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict vol­un­teers is clear­ly grow­ing. One of the precinct lead­ers who we had to call to ask a ques­tion of, said, “Well, if you have a ques­tion, and I can help, I’ll just come down there.” She stayed until 10:30 PM tonight. It is now 11:55 PM, and I’m now end­ing my night with this lit­tle sto­ry about my 2016 Cau­cus expe­ri­ence which I will nev­er forget.

Thank you to all of the Democ­rats of the twen­ty-five Issaquah Precincts which Ava Frisinger and I had the plea­sure of lead­ing through a suc­cess­ful Cau­cus. I hope to see all of you in the next four years or so. Thank you for help­ing each oth­er, help­ing me, and mak­ing this a great expe­ri­ence. We are elect­ing a Demo­c­rat in 2016.

NPI Direc­tor Ralph Gorin, report­ing from Meander:

In my area, big crowd. We filled the mid­dle school cafe­te­ria and gym.

In my precinct there were 21 par­tic­i­pants (count­ing sur­ro­gate forms).
15 for Hillary, 6 for Bernie. 2 del­e­gates for Hillary, one for
Bernie. My precinct adjourned at 11:20 AM.

In my area, the sta­tis­tics were reversed com­pared to my precinct:
about 2 to 1, Bernie over Hillary. I stayed to help oth­er precincts and to help with the cleanup. We were done with it all by 1:30 PM.

Lots of peo­ple stayed to help.

… with more reports to fol­low.