My mom and I got to the high school early to get ready to caucus.
While there weren't many people at there yet, the hallway was still packed with people trying to find their precinct and sign in. Once my mom and I found our precinct, we hopped into a crowd of people. Luckily, there was only one person ahead of us in our precinct when we got in line so we were able to sign in quickly.
We were told to wait in the cafeteria until 7 p.m. when they would start going over the rules of caucusing. It was 6:20 by the time we got into the cafeteria and began our wait.
We ran into a couple of old friends and talked to pass the time. In the blink of an eye, the cafeteria was packed with people and it was getting hotter by the second.
Finally, a woman came over the loud speaker and told us we were about to begin.
I should have known caucusing was going to be crazy from the moment that woman began speaking to the large crowd.
"Speak up! We can't hear you!"
"If everyone would be quiet we would all be able to hear!"
"We still can't hear you all the way back here!"
People were already yelling at each other and we hadn't even gotten to the part where we discuss the candidates. After listening to the mumbled rules while people yelled at other people, everyone dispersed into their assigned classrooms where the voting for their precinct would be.
Our precinct stayed in the cafeteria. The once-crowded room finally became a room where everyone could breathe comfortably.
There were more rules to be read and positions (counter and secretary) to be assigned. It really wasn't as official as I thought it would be. I mean, I thought there would be people whose job it was to do this whole caucus thing. In reality, the people who ran the caucus were just your average volunteers.
For my precinct, it seemed like these people didn't really know what they were doing.
"I just found out I was doing this," one of the volunteers said. I feel like it just made the process a little more confusing.
Then finally, after getting a straw count of how many people were there and awkwardly sitting around for a little bit while the "officials" got things together, we got to the good part.
We were going to divide into two sides for each candidate.
Oh, but wait. Not yet, because, of course, we have to wait some more.
The people in my precinct seemed like they were in a bad mood. When someone suggested we hear from a few people as to why they are supporting each of the candidates, everyone seemed to grumble.
Being that it was my first caucus, I wanted to get the whole experience so I was all for it. This, of course, caused people to start bickering and bash each other, but, come on people, we're in the same party. We're basically all on the same side--we all don't want to see Trump win.
After about 20 more minutes of people speaking about each candidate and people just yelling, "Let's vote already!" we finally separated into two sides. By now it was 8:30 and we all had to be out of the school by 9 p.m.
After we voted, it was all over. Well, except for quickly choosing delegates to represent our precinct at the next level, my first caucus was over.
It was a pretty crazy because who knew people would be so grumpy about the whole thing. But I paid my civic duty and got out to caucus.
It was exciting and weird and exhausting all at the same time, making it a pretty cool experience overall. I didn’t really know what to expect but I definitely thought people would be in a better mood when deciding who was possibly going to be our next president.
After two and a half hours of looking at my old high school logo plastered on the tables and walls, it was finally time to go home.
