Utah's election process starts with a caucus meeting

Caucus meetings are the most basic way to get involved in Utah’s election process. Sometimes it's the only way.
Those who are lucky enough to be elected as county and/or state delegates could make the decisions for all of us.
County and state candidates who receive 60 percent of the vote at the county or state convention automatically appear on the ballot for the general election, bypassing a primary election.
Each precinct is allotted a number of state and county delegates based on the precinct’s population. If you want to be a delegate you must be elected by other members in your precinct.
According to us.govinfo.about.com, “Caucuses are simply meetings, open to all registered voters of the party, at which delegates to the party's national convention are selected. When the caucus begins, the voters in attendance divide themselves into groups according to the candidate they support. The undecided voters congregate into their own group and prepare to be ‘courted’ by supporters of other candidates.
Voters in each group are then invited to give speeches supporting their candidate and trying to persuade others to join their group. At the end of the caucus, party organizers count the voters in each candidate's group and calculate how many delegates to the county convention each candidate has won.
As in the primaries, the caucus process can produce both pledged and unpledged convention delegates, depending on the party rules of the various states.”
The Utah caucuses that I’ve attended weren’t quite that elaborate. During the 2010 caucus meeting I got the impression that all of the decisions regarding precinct officers and delegates were made prior to the meeting. The meeting was merely a formality.
It is possible to completely bypass the primary election process altogether if all candidates on a given ballot receive at least 60 percent of the delegates' votes at the county and state levels.
I never have understood this process. The state that we moved from always held a primary election that all registered voters could participate in.
If there were five people running for a county or state office, their names were placed on the ballot representing their party. If there was not a clear winner in the primary the two highest vote-getters advanced to the general election.
I prefer this system over Utah's caucus system.
When we moved here almost eight years ago and asked one of the locals how we could get information on the local elections. We were told that if we lived here long enough we would know who to vote for. Well, since then I've figured out who I want to vote for. I may not have to vote for them if they get 60 percent of the delegate votes. I may not get to vote for them if they are beaten by someone who does get 60 percent of the vote. And if, by chance no one gets 60 percent of the vote, but they are one of the top two vote getters, I might just get to cast my ballot.

Rhonda Tommer is a member of the writers group and a resident of Santa Clara. She can be reached at r.tommer.writersgroup@gmail.com