Primaries

It is primaries time! Selecting a candidate who is running for president is a big thing over here. Lucky enough they have only two parties else it would be a total mess ;-)

What is basically creating this mess is that each state is voting for a democrat and republican candidate separately, sometimes even on a different day. You also have open and close election which basically just says how early you have to register for taking part. For example over here in Colorado it is a closed election what means you have to register 90 days in advanced and don't have a chance to get in if you feel spontaneous.

To make things even more confusing different states have primaries or caucuses. Primaries are basically a normal election like you would know from a general election back home. A caucus is something really strange in my opinion. Basically you have it in a big hall or a church, people are gathering there at a certain time after which the hall is sealed of (usually 7.30 pm). Then people in there would start to discuss about the candidates and their programs and at the end of the night they are asked to go to one corner of the room for each candidate to get counted. All caucuses combined (and Colorado has such a thing too) is the state result.

But the final confusion is that different states have the majority vote system and others not. For example New York and California are voting 100% for one candidate even though he or she might got only one percent more then the other candidates.

Oh boy... I am already looking forward to the general election in November now. That should be fun. By the way, Obama won Colorado with 67% for the democrats and Romney with 60% for the republicans.