Five percent of Frankin County Idaho Republicans turned out to the recent caucus held on March 2, at Preston High School.
PRESTON – Frankin County Idaho Republican Central Committee Chairman Todd Thomas said he was disappointed with the turnout at the recent caucus held on March 2, at Preston High School.
The Caucus only brought out about 5 percent of the registered Republicans to choose candidates.
“We worked for weeks and weeks getting ready for the caucus and we only had about 290 out of the 5,000 registered Republicans show up,” he said. “The State of Idaho also had a poor caucus tunout with only 7 percent showing.”
Four candidates dropped out of the race.
“Some people approached me after the caucus and said it was a forgone conclusion who was going to be the presidential candidate,” Thomas claimed. “’My vote doesn’t matter; the decision has already been made.’”
Thomas said the bad weather could have had a lot to do with poor attendance.
“I think most of it is just disinterest,” he said. “Everyone thought it was a forgone conclusion and didn’t want to spend the time it took to go to the high school gym.”
Thomas said they had streamlined the caucus recently, so they opened the doors at noon and were done by 4:30 p.m.
“It took people about 10 minutes to come and make their choice,” he said. “They came in one door and out another.”
There were no absentee and no mail-in ballots you had to be there to participate.
The 2012 caucus took hours to pick candidates.
This year’s caucus format came from an inadvertent legislative action in last year’s session of the Idaho Legislature. The legislature was trying to save cost and a bill was passed removing the March election date for school bonds and levies.
The bill was signed by the governor knowing the presidential primary was inadvertently eliminated. In order for Idaho to award the 32 delegates assigned to the state, at the national Republican convention in this coming July, the only way to make it happen they had to hold a statewide caucus.