Re:The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night
by bluGill on Tuesday February 04, 2020 @05:14PM
(#22241620)
This is a caucus not an election. The democrats have never used paper ballots (as far as I know - my history is short though). The republicans still use hand counted ballots.
Either way in a caucus you are NOT electing a president, you are just choosing a delegate who goes on to the national convention where the president is chosen. There are rules so that the caucus results feed who is supported at the national convention, but there are ways around those rules if you want to go to the national convention and then support someone who wasn't even running in the first place - though you pretty well better be assured of a win before you think about trying those tricks as the media will go nuts. (the same rules exist in primary states, technically there is a caucus somewhere that chooses the delegate to the national convention who can then vote for someone else)
Either way in a caucus you are NOT electing a president, you are just choosing a delegate who goes on to the national convention where the president is chosen. There are rules so that the caucus results feed who is supported at the national convention, but there are ways around those rules if you want to go to the national convention and then support someone who wasn't even running in the first place - though you pretty well better be assured of a win before you think about trying those tricks as the media will go nuts. (the same rules exist in primary states, technically there is a caucus somewhere that chooses the delegate to the national convention who can then vote for someone else)