Simpler caucus needed

Saturday’s caucuses came far short of representing many of Washington state voters.

I live in senior housing in Coupeville; and as in past elections, most of these residents received absentee ballots. The usual triple-paper assortment of instructions, ballot cards and two envelopes. Most residents here faithfully filled them in and sent them off.

Now, they tell us, none of them counted. To have your vote counted, you apparently had to go to the high school Saturday between l and 3 p.m. and add your info to a registration form, noting your choice of the two candidates.

This year, that took place in a room far smaller than the middle school gym that hosted the Democratic caucus last time. The small room for our precinct was packed to the extent that anyone with balance problems would be at risk; and walkers were out of the question, let alone wheelchairs. There was also so much noise in the little room that you could barely hear those immediately around you. In our group, that meant that only two people tried to make a case for their choice, at one minute each, which were barely heard.

After that, we gave up. But we were told that no subsequent vote-taking was necessary anyway; whoever we mentioned on the registration form was our iron-clad choice.

I hope the process was better handled elsewhere in this state, or the results could hardly be called representative of our citizens, especially those limited in mobility.

Patricia Brooks

Coupeville

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