NE: Chaos at the caucus. And Obama doing well in one precinct.

11:42 a.m.

It doesn't look good for Clinton at Monroe Middle School.

The line to the Clinton box is empty. The line to vote for Obama is about a half block long.

11:39 a.m.

Order is finally being restored at Monroe Middle School.

High spirits reigned throughout much of the chaos but some people were obviously angry.

"This is ridiculous. I'm never doing this again," said Bruce Lovejoy, 54, a Clinton supporter.

"I've seen walkathons organized better than this," said Dan Brick, 50.

* * *

11:30 a.m.

Overrun by crowds, caucus organizers at Monroe Middle School declared a state of emergency.

All attempts at traditional caucusing have been suspended.

People are now being asked to simple drop a blue piece of paper with their choice in a box.

And it doesn't look good for Hillary Clinton. People have to wait to drop into Barack Obama's box. The Clinton line is much shorter.

* * *

11:17 a.m.

At Metro in Elkhorn, "Plan B" was scrapped.

An overflow room also became overran. Caucus leaders in Elkhorn are now allowing people to vote by a blue slip.

At Monroe Middle School, people are now being asked to go into the parking lot.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2835&u_sid=10254218

uses caucuses. They're stupid.

I wouldn't call them fraud, but they're not as equitable. I like caucuses. They are the purest form of Democracy that you see in this country.

who can get off work to get to them, or can take a few hours at a specific time to go vote. And people who don't mind having their preference made public.

Sorry, I don't see the pure democracy in them.

I think the party would have to pay for the primary. That's why they choose the caucus.

It is much more fair and expressive of majority.

Not one cent for Democracy!

and our red REPUBLICAN officials are in no hurry to change any of those laws. But, you don't need to change a law to caucus.. just get the party's permission. So that is why we're having a caucus instead of our traditional MAY primary this year.

I defitinitely prefer the primary.. caucuses SUCK. Here's my summary of today: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4503818&mesg_id=4503818

BTW, my precint captian sucked.

when there are alot of less viable candidates and you want to give them a chance to change their support to someone who has a chance of winning. I hate to agree that caucusing when there are only two candidates makes less sense.

I also like how Democrats get to meet other Democrats.

I also like how people get to vocalize why they support their candidate and it seems to fire people up alot more than just a normal primary.

When are you caucusing?

Omaha caucused at 10 so our election is basically over. I don't think the western counties even realize anything is going on today! I honestly wonder if some counties will have anyone show up. Ours was a little more organized than what the OP was describing. The gym was overrun so we got stuck in some hallway. But they seemed to go throgh all the motions. I have no idea how the gym ended up but Obama won the hallway 287-69

You should post that as an OP.

No matter the candidate.
That is what you meant, right? ;)

if you want some more good Obama news, my gf said her caucus in another part of Omaha ended up a little over 1,000 for Obama and 200-something for Hillary.

People need to keep turning out though because as most of us know, the margin of victory determines delegates. This is not winner take all so every vote really does count.

The cult is growing. :D

At their best they are one of the purest forms of democracy. At their worst they are borderline disenfranchisement.

last Tuesday. Absolute pandemonium and no organization. We had blue cards, too, but the "people in charge" (haha), at least in our district, ended up just having us line up against a wall and count down. There were no pitches by either side, just show up, be herded around the building, and count down, that was it.

The only good part about it was just seeing that many Democrats here in red Alaska all in one place.

About seeing that there's so many Democrats around. That's really positive for the party.

I read that in 2004 only 700 people caucused for the Democrats statewide (of course, we were scheduled late in previous years, which might have had something to do with the low turnout), but this year there were about 4,000 here in Anchorage alone and many people who couldn't make it to the caucus site because of traffic and parking problems. This was even after they held the doors open an extra hour and a half. One guy on the news said he was forced to park a couple of miles away because of the traffic jam and walked the rest of the way to the school -- in -10 degree weather. That's a determined voter!

I thought I read that yesterday.

You're all in the same time zone. What's the story with that?

why the different times, but let's just say the Democratic party organization in Nebraska has been a little...er...anemic. We just don't have a lot of Democrats here to do things the right way, I guess.

How big is the caucusing window?

Lancaster Co (Lincoln) is at 6 pm. That's pretty much the big population centers here.

second-biggest (except for maybe Bellevue, which is south of Omaha in Sarpy Co.--I don't know when theirs is, sometime this afternoon)--so we'll all have to wait to see the Lincoln results.

Have fun. I wish I could caucus!

was at 10:00am (although most started very late).. Sarpy County (South Omaha, Bellevue & Offut Airforce Base) was at noon, although didn't start 'till 2:00pm because 3,000 people showed up to one location.. and i'm not sure when Lincolns is.

If word gets out that Obama is smoking her, people might stay home.

http://www.nebraskademocrats.org/content/1365/Nebraska-Presidential-Caucus-Locations

At a time when democratic activists are so zealous about protecting our votes, it amazes me that there is not yet a strong movement to banish caucuses. They so easily become orgaonized exercises in group intimidation.

I see it as the purest form of Democracy in this nation.

nt

of claiming Clinton is losing because of so-called voter intimidation at caucuses.

We can debate the merits of caucus or lack thereof, but clearly Obama has more support than Clinton in states like Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri.

I will say though that I have much more confidence that the results of any primary more dependably accurately reflect the true feelings of all the Democrats in any State than the results of any caucus.

so those whose schedule or temperament can't work with caucus could still vote via secret ballot?

And it'd have to be a Run-Off ballot. So you could check candidates in order of preference.

I think that is called instant run off voting. I'm just not a fan of caucuses, especially early ones when a number of candidates struggle to hit a viability threshold and fall short, with the result that it ends up looking like they had no support, while other candidate camps are wheeling and dealing like horse traders making strategic temporary alliances that no one actually believes in.

I saw Clinton operatives engaging in some pretty obnoxious behavior at the one I volunteered at in NV.

and saw both Clinton and Obama supporters behaving like hyenas circling an infant zebra.

Give me the secret ballot over a bunch of yahoos sticking their noses in my face and my business; demanding I listen, telling me I am WRONG to think "x" when they think "y" . . . spouting off about "change" "it's not a campaign, it's a movement" "you have to believe" with the frothing, wild-eyed fervency of tent-revival preachers.

YUK.

I couldn't find the door fast enough.

Caucuses are crap, and those who love them must be party insiders or something. It's a "smoke filled room" sort of thing in my opinion.

:evilgrin:

and they get a lot of power and influemce while doing so which COULD be used to feather their own nests. In a polling booth we represent no one but our little lonely selves.

And actually Congress critters do cast a lot of secret ballots; except they call those "voice votes".

The heat of election season is the wrong time to deal with it, just like voting rights and other election issues.
Unfortunately, this is the only time people pay attention, because the problems are so glaring, and so fresh in our minds.


Besides the intimidation, there is often subtle (or not so subtle) manipulation - a small but well organized group can have too much influence. The better "machine" has an advantage, whether that machine represents the better candidate or not.

This is not about today's candidates - no accusations - just replying WTR the process itself.
The same can be said about the superdelegates as an imperfect reaction to the previous "smoke filled rooms" -- we should always be open to better ways to improve the process.

:wtf:

Where have there been "tween" voters?

They can vote in the caucus, if not, then no. You are accusing malfeasance in which state now?

If there is an accusation of underagers voting, then someone had better report it to proper officials, don't sob about it on here.

It's monkeyfunk. If you're ignoring him, you must be ignoring half of DU.

He pissed me off at one time or another, so that's why he's there. I'll take most people off ignore after the primary is done. I probably have about 75 on my list, so if that is half of DU, so be it. Perhaps I should just ignore responses without using the feature, but it is not easy to do, sorry. Thanks for clarifying the age thing, but I don't understand what the poster who is talking about "tweeners" is insinuating. If there is voter fraud happening, we must report it through the proper channels. Merely discussing it on a message board will not accomplish the stoppage of such fraud.

Interesting and fun account. Caucus being moved to the parking lot :-).... Not the greatest organization, but great participation, much more important. I wonder whether there will be information about how many people switched parties in order to vote in NE and other similar states....

It would stand to reason that Obama would do better in this area, wouldn't it?

Are there not enough Dems who know how to organize a caucus?

Why the chaos?

:shrug:

How did it go?

We caucused in the "traditional" way, and our location was closer than you are indicating, but I think Obama won our room, anyway.

FWIW, I think his speech at Omaha Civic Center made a huge impression, in that he actually cared enough to come to Nebraska.

He's the first candidate to come to Nebraska in ages. I can't believe Hillary didn't have time for a token visit.

that will not draw atleast 3-5000. If she goes to a state where Obama is showing crowds of 10-20,000 and she gets a crowd of a 1500 the juxtaposition of the pictures in the naitonal media would be more devestating than the loss she will spin as caucuses are not democratic, not my state etc.

no doubt these Nebraskans will be driving their volvos over to Starbucks after the caucus to talk about the little people.

We do have white collar elites with Volvos and Starbucks.

We also have John Deere combines, feedlots, and slaughterhouses.

I'm wondering what's your point?

...just makes my heart smile. Regardless of the result.

:)

hahahahahaah

Obama won by over 5 to one.

The original post is a live update reported by the Omaha World Herald from a couple locations. I just got back from my caucus at Metro Community College and it was also overcrowded. They were expecting about 500 people and there were about 1000 people in line by the time I got signed in and moved into the, already overcrowded, caucus room. They were encouraging many people to cast an absentee ballot and leave if they wanted to. They did not have enough room for everyone and ended up having a 2nd caucus in another building. Despite the huge crowd, everyone still had a chance to attend our caucus. I went to our local cafe after and heard there were about 1500 at a nearby high school, also overcrowded. Obama was here in Omaha Thursday for a rally and I think it made a huge impact on Omaha. At my location there was an obvious majority for Obama. This is also our first Democratic Caucus in Nebraska ever. Looked like a lot of new people registering to vote. I don't think they could have prepared for this. They kept things sort of under control, considering the circumstances.

:hi: