Finally after all these years of voting I now understand what the Iowa Caucuses are and how they work. Iowa is very serious about voting and take pride in their Caucus process. Every precinct in Iowa (there are 1681 of them in 99 counties) holds a Republican and a Democratic Caucus on what we call our election day. Every interested participant goes to the Caucus site, like the one pictured above. They listen to speeches by the candidates or their spokesperson. They can ask questions and participate with the candidate (or his spokesperson) and make a final decision.
When that is over, everyone gets up and joins the group of his/her choice that represents the candidate they want. They can change groups if they choose to do so, but at some point the process ends. The groups are then counted and reported to the Caucus Headquarters. There the votes are counted and it is dermined what percentage of the vote went to each candidate. The Republican percentages Monday night were Cruz 27.6%, Trump 24.3%, Rubio 23.1%, Carson 9.3%, Paul, 4.5%, Bush 2.8% and Kasich 1.9%.
Iowa sends 28 Republican Delegates to the July 2016 Republican Convention. Those 28 delegate votes were divied up amongst the candidates on Monday night. Cruz won 8, Trump and Rubio both won 7, Carson won 3; Paul, Bush and Kasich each won 1 and the rest 0. These votes will be cast at the Republican National Convention to choose the National Republican candidate.
The Electoral College System is another story and I still don’t understand that yet, but I am determined to learn this year.
