What I wish I had known before we held our caucus in Hawaii.

[mahina]

You may or may not have read the headlines from Hawaii about how totally overwhelmed our formerly tiny caucuses were. We had 200 or so vote in 04, and this year we had 3000 people show up. End of the day, our vote was 286 Clinton to 1172 Obama. Our party leadership is strongly for Clinton. They did not heed the plea to prepare district chairs for a very massive turnout.

We ended up not even registering people, just taking little slips of paper (ballots and backup ballots ran out immediately) and signing them in to each precinct. At the end of the day, we had no overvotes. Each precinct conducted a fair and open election, but about 2/3 of the crowd didn't stay for the (two) long lines they had to stand in originally. More people showed up for our little valley caucus than attended the entire state convention last year, and our turnout while high was consistent with others.

Were I asked what we could do differently, I'd have trained greeters with precinct maps tell everyone their precinct number, and go directly to precinct elections.

Have a team of people offering brownies, water, etc, and a place for the little ones to play, watched by their parents of course. Getting people to stay and be happy and calm was a big accomplishment, to the degree that we were successful in accomplishing that.

God bless our district chair, she worked so hard. And likewise all volunteers.

Some pics, courtesy of Scott Fost er, and a couple of newspaper links and also a great video from our newspaper website http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080220/VIDEO01/80220005.

From the Advertiser:
"The latest numbers released by the Hawaii Democratic Party today show U.S. Sen. Barack Obama garnered 28,347 caucus votes, or 75.74 percent of the vote, while U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton received 8,835 votes, or 23.61 percent"

Aloha


Holy smokes! Get ready Texas and Ohio, keep em happy...

[IndyOp]

1. Thanks for the report. I just can't guess what Indiana will be like...

I am in a college town, so turnout could be HUGE.

Then again, we don't vote until May, so people might figure that our delegates don't matter...

:shrug:

[mahina]

13. You'll be fine! But be sure to get a meeting of volunteers w your district chair BEFORE the night of

the caucus, we thought we had time to get our plan lined up, and we did not. It's lucky we met the week prior or it would have been pandemonium.

Have a great caucus!

[mahina]

16. Our district chair, Beth, is in the opening part of the video. It was an impossible job but she did

it!

[ClassWarrior]

2. Ohmylord... I sooo need to be there again.

Thanks for the glimpses of your beautiful islands.

NGU.

[mahina]

3. Come back soon...

we aren't going anywhere. Aloha.

[Yael]

4. Self delete -- posted in the wrong spot!

[Yael]

5. Thanks for the pics and the report!

K&R for Hawaii!

[grantcart]

6. thanks for sending us our next president - the world needs some

Aloha spirit

[mahina]

7. That's the way we see it too.

Aloha.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. Congrats Obama Peeps.......HI was his home

[Cha]

9. Good Advice...been wondering where you

were mahina besides Hawai'i! Obamaloha Landslide!

[mahina]

12. Oh my God Zidzi it was NUTS!

Everyone was calm, but we had voters lining up when we were still trying to set up the tables, we never even got to meet and get a plan down, we should have definitely had a runner to alert all volunteers of changes, and Neil got up on the stage at one point when the room was PACKED and there were like a thousand people outside waiting, to forget about registering as Democrats, forget about the lines, we had the House majority leader handing out little pieces of printer paper and you just sign in with your precinct, write the name of your guy on it and hand it in to your precinct official.

Holy virgin Mary it was one crazy wild night. We're all still totally cooked.

Be well sister, aloha.

[Cha]

14. Mahalo! I can imagine! I got the

call from Tim on Kauai, Wed the 20th and he was so excited about voting in his first election..never mind primary! He didn't know it was going to be so easy..just a block away at a lady's house where the tables were set up in her yard. "There were long lines but it was fun hanging out"..She was telling people that the Obama stuff was free just make sure you vote for him;) So he got his Obama sticker! I'm so happy about all the participation even if it was unexpected in such High Numbers.

Your avatar is so unique. I'm glad you're just coming on now with this 'cause I wanted the Aloha Landslide to be prolonged..I'm still cooked, too.

Wonder how Senator Inouye feels ..flying back to Hawai'i to cast his vote for hilary in time for the Obamaloha Landslide?

[crispini]

10. Thanks for the good advice!

So what you're saying is that you had many precincts caucus in one place, and the original line to sign in was too long?

Not going to be a problem at least in my county -- we all caucus on election day in our precinct. I'm expecting about 100. :scared:

I'm borrowing a PA system.

[mahina]

11. Hi! No, our district contains the same 6 precincts it always has.

Just this time, we had a 1500% increase in voter turnout.

Obama wins Hawaii in a landslide

Advertiser Staff

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080219/BREAKING01/80219081
GREGORY YAMAMOTO | The Honolulu Advertiser


Sen. Barack Obama, who was born and raised in Hawai'i, won the state's Democratic Presidential caucus in a landslide Tuesday. Obama had 20,974 votes, or 76 percent, to Sen. Hillary Clinton's 6,529 votes, or 24 percent, with 68 percent of the precincts reporting.

Hawai'i Democrats turned out in record numbers at the party's caucuses to help settle the nomination fight between Obama and Clinton of New York.

Obama ran television and radio advertisements in the Islands and talked about his local roots to help distinguish himself from Clinton, who sent her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, to campaign for her in the state.

The caucuses drew a surge of new Democrats, including many who registered to vote and joined the party just last night.

The party had printed 17,000 ballots and volunteers at many caucus sites ran out of ballots and blue party membership cards and had to improvise with notebook paper.

The caucuses have typically drawn fewer than 5,000 people in the past but got at least several times that figure last night.

[AtomicKitten]

15. Excellent tips for future reference.

Thanks for bringing us a peek at Hawaii. I think what happened there is what is happening across the country, and the turn-out is nothing short of spectacular. That's precisely what Barack is talking about when he discusses building a coalition to bring about real change.

[ellisonz]

17. Obama is pono.

The word pono in the Hawaiian language is referred to most popularly as 'righteousness'. As is stated in the Hawaii state motto: Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono (translated directly as: the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness). <1>

However, the word is often used to mean correct, honorable, or good.

There are strong cultural and spiritual connotations to the word. A loose definition could be a state of harmony or balance, in which every thing is as it should be for that moment. It is often used as affirmation in prayers, especially within Kanaka Maoli healing arts and the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pono

[TexasObserver]

18. Pono! I like it. I love finding out such little tidbits of language.

I'll tell my son, who teaches all sorts of students from all over. I'm sure he has an occasional Hawaiian.

[MaineDem]

19. At least you could go outside

Lucky you!

We had lines snaking around blocks in a blowing, cold snowstorm. But people didn't leave! They stayed in line (most of them) to make their voices heard. It was truly awe-inspiring.

We underestimated, too. Like in Hawaii, turnout depended on whether the race was over or not. This was very exciting.