caucus

[muon2]

A caucus is a very traditional method of selecting a candidate or slate of candidates for a party. The basic idea is that a group of people interested in the activities in a party meet at a place and time to select people to represent their party in the general election.

In IL it's still used to select most township candidates. In this case there is a date and time set by the state. Each party organization at the township level that wishes to participate places a public notice in the press. The party organization for each township set the rules and verifies the qualifications of attendees (within limits set by the state). Usually the only restrictions are that the person must be a resident of the township, a registered voter, and did not participate in another parties caucus or primary in the previous year. Once the meeting is established, there is selection of a chair, nominations, speeches, and then a vote by the caucus attendees. The winning candidates appear on the general election ballot.

I was in Germany for local elections four years ago, and it seemed like their lists of candidates were selected by something like a caucus of party members from the local jurisdiction. There was no primary.

[muon2]

I was in Germany for local elections four years ago, and it seemed like their lists of candidates were selected by something like a caucus of party members from the local jurisdiction. There was no primary.

Can't speak for other states of Germany, but in Hesse that's true only of very small parties and the Greens. Other parties will have a convention, with every ward group sending two delegates or three. (The situation for state and federal lists is similar, although there'll be more party members per delegate, and the Greens use delegates as well.) But yeah, at Green Party local election list selection, even for a city as big as Frankfurt, any party member can just walk into the meeting and vote.

It probably was a convention then. To an outsider, the functioning of a caucus and a convention are very similar. Only a careful observer would note that the convention voters are selected delegates. As a non-native, I hope you'll forgive my probable error. :S