Except that it’s not really a caucus, at least not the kind where you meet your neighbors and try to persuade them to vote your way while resisting their blandishments to vote theirs.

No, Hawai’i’s Democrats run what’s called a Presidential Preference Poll. A what?

Question: Why do you call it a Presidential Preference Poll and not a Caucus?

Answer: Because it’s not a caucus! The Poll has some similarities with other caucuses. The Democratic Party of Hawaii organizes and pays for the Poll. The Poll results will decide how Hawaii splits our 34 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The polls are conducted at the local level. But unlike a caucus, the voting in Hawaii is by secret ballot.

I was handed a slip of paper with the names of the candidates; I checked the box next to my choice’s name, folded it over and handed it back to the volunteer who put it into a 9×12 envelope.

I was told to arrive at my polling place (not the same as my regular polling place, which I’m sure confused some people) at 12:30 and that voting would begin promptly at 1:00pm. Fine, but the location was an elementary school with limited parking. I got there promptly at 12:30 and the lot was full and there were people circling it. This made no sense, since no one was going to vacate a parking space until voting began a half-hour later.

Disgusted, I left and headed for the grocery store for a baking potato and some fresh mushrooms. Then I headed back to the polls. I got there about 1:10pm; there was beginning to be some movement in the building and in the parking lot. Someone left and I grabbed his parking space and headed toward the cafeteria where the voting was to take place. There was a volunteer there who looked at the card I’d gotten in the mail telling me where to vote, approved it and said “you want table 33-05.” That would be 33rd District, the table for voters whose last names begin with S through Z, I imagine.

The interior was the typical cafeteria, with two long rows of tables and a wide center aisle. Naturally, everyone was in line in the center aisle. I thought “there has to be a better way” and I slid to the outside aisle and discovered I could see table-tent styled numbers on the tables closest to the center aisle near the ends. If I’d been organizing it I’d have put the same identification at each end of the table, even if there was only one roster of voters’ names to be signed. Anyway, I found the right table, worked my way forward from the outside, showed my postcard to the volunteer and signed the book next to my name. As I said, I was then handed a ballot, checked the appropriate box, handed it back to the volunteer, and made my way out of the room.

As I left I walked past this guy who was standing near the exit. He wasn’t electioneering or gladhanding anyone, though, he was just observing. That might have been my best chance ever to lobby the state’s Governor and I missed it.

I know they rely on volunteer labor, and I know I’m not going to volunteer, but this process surely needed someone with organizational skills to run it better, at least at my polling place. It made no sense to tell people to show up before voting began at 1:00pm, because that just meant the parking lot filled up way early and no one wanted to leave without voting. I really wonder how many people just got ticked off and gave up. Once the voting began the traffic flow outside worked fine.

It needed some help inside too. I know the State pays nothing for this; the Democrats have to fund it out of the annual dues they receive and any donations they get. But they needed some vertical signs like these to specify which district and which part of the alphabet was to be found at which table. Or they needed more volunteers to guide people around the room (probably cheaper than signs).

Oh well. I did my duty to the party. Go me.