What is a Caucus Meeting and Why Should I Attend?
In Utah, political parties hold neighborhood caucus meetings in March every other year. Voters from each voting precinct meet together to choose their precinct officers and delegates.
Precinct officers represent you to your state and county Party for two years. They attend the central committee and other meetings where the platforms, direction and operation of the Party are determined.
Delegates represent you in choosing your Party’s nominee for partisan elections at conventions.
Who’s Who at the Caucus Meeting?Caucus meetings are run by volunteers. A “host” conducts the caucus meeting. The host is usually the current precinct chair, but not always.
Other volunteers help with the logistics, such as checking people in and counting the votes. You may be asked to help.
Who Can Attend and How Do They Know Who Should be Participating?
Anybody can attend a caucus meeting, but only registered Republican voters can speak, nominate, vote, or be elected as a precinct officer or delegate.
Volunteers check every person’s voter registration status as they enter the meeting. The Party provides a printed list of registered Republicans in the precinct.
If you are on the list, you show your ID and are signed in. If you are not on the list, you can fill out a new voter registration form and affiliate with the Republican Party. You can save time by pre-registering to attend the caucus at the Utah County Party website – www.ucrp.org.
Everyone must bring some form of identification.
Conducting the Meeting
The host should conduct the meeting in an unbiased way and encourage broad participation. First, the host welcomes everyone and invites volunteers to say a prayer and lead the Pledge of Allegiance. The host reviews the Party platform, the rules of the caucus meeting, and the duties of each officer and delegate.
It is helpful if you review that information in advance to make sure you understand. If you have questions, ask a precinct officer before the meeting to avoid slowing down the meeting. These documents are available at www.ucrp.org.
Electing Precinct Officers & Delegates
The main agenda item and primary reason for holding the caucus meeting is the election of precinct officers and delegates.
Officers are elected in the following order – Precinct Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and/or Treasurer. Once officers are elected, any “at large” positions for state and county delegates that have been assigned to the precinct are elected.
All elections follow a similar process. First, nominations are taken. Seconds are not required. Participants are welcome to nominate themselves or any other qualified person. The nominee does not have to be present, but must be a registered Republican in the precinct. Nominations can be made in advance at www.ucrp.org.
Once everyone that wishes to make a nomination has had a chance, nominations are closed by the host and each nominee is allowed to make a brief statement or speech (usually about a minute or less per person).
Voting is conducted by secret ballot. The method of voting may vary by precinct depending on the number of nominees, but all elections are determined by majority vote. If there is only one nominee, the precinct will usually declare them the winner by acclamation without a formal vote.
Precinct chairs are automatic state and county delegates and precinct vice-chairs are automatic county delegates. If you would like to be a delegate, you might consider running for one of these positions.
