The General Caucus

The General Caucus is a series of tiered meetings for selecting public officials to specific offices. It begins at the precinct level, where registered voters gather to choose delegates for the next caucus. At each precinct caucus, attendees debate the relevant issues and group themselves around a potential delegate until one group achieves a simple majority. All office holders must come from the caucuses, and state legislature districts are used as the basis for the tiers because they are drawn to be of roughly equal population.

Precinct caucuses select delegates for every office on the ballot that year — governor, senator, representative, elector, and so on — but each subsequent caucus is separated by office. There may be a final statewide caucus for an office like governor or senator, or regional caucuses for offices like representative or elector. Discussion at each tier focuses on the issues relevant to the office being filled: local matters for a mayoral selection, federal issues for a senatorial one.

Ultimately, the General Caucus is a system that defends the people from both the perverse interests of oligarchs and the populist rhetoric of tyrannically-minded candidates.

How It Works

The starting point is the precinct caucus, followed by a state house-district caucus, and finally a statewide caucus. State house-districts are recommended for the middle tier because they are drawn to be of roughly equal size. The final statewide caucus selects the public official.

A precinct caucus chooses delegates for as many offices as have been assigned that year — it might choose delegates for mayor, member of Congress, governor, elector, and senator all at once. Every subsequent caucus, however, works on only a single office. For example, a precinct caucus may choose a delegate for governor; that delegate then meets at the state house-district caucus with all the other governor delegates, who together choose one delegate to advance. At the final statewide caucus, those delegates meet and choose the state's governor. If a senator is being chosen the same year, the senatorial delegates hold their own separate caucuses.

Attendance

Any registered voter may attend their precinct caucus. All public officials must be selected through the General Caucus process, and caucus-goers may choose delegates and office holders only from those physically present at their caucus meeting.

Caucusing

At the time of the precinct caucus, once all caucus-goers have checked in, the offices in question are announced. It is then the responsibility of the caucus-goers to deliberate the issues surrounding a particular office and to group themselves with someone present to represent their precinct and interests. If a group consists of a simple majority of the attending caucus, that person becomes the caucus delegate and advances to the following caucus for that office. If no group achieves a simple majority, the smallest group is asked to disband and join the others. This continues until one group reaches the simple-majority threshold.

Ideally, debate at each caucus revolves around the specific office being filled. Caucusing for a local mayor should spur debate over crime, sanitation, and other local issues; caucusing for a senator should focus on international relations, interstate commerce, and other federal matters.

Caucus Structure

The General Caucus can be used for offices as small as a city council seat or as large as governor or senator. A small office may require only two tiers — a precinct caucus followed by a caucus covering the city council district — while a statewide office requires three: precinct, state house-district, and statewide. The middle series of caucuses could be conducted by county, as the Iowa caucus currently does, but holding them by state legislature district is recommended because those districts are based on population and are of reasonably equal size.

The secretaries of state and county clerks are responsible for structuring the General Caucus efficiently in each state. Their primary task is to calculate the number of tiers needed to fill a given office and the size of each caucus.

Iowa demonstrates the three-tier structure with its 1,681 precincts and 100 state house-districts: each precinct sends one delegate to its state house-district caucus, creating groups of roughly 168 delegates, who each select one representative for the final statewide caucus of 100 people. The system scales effectively even for larger states. California, with its 22,000 precincts and 80 state house-districts, would average about 275 participants per state house-district caucus at one delegate per precinct. Each of those caucuses could send one or two delegates to the statewide caucus, creating a final assembly of 80 to 160 people.

Caucus Sizes

The size of each caucus is crucial for efficient deliberation. Large gatherings present several challenges: communication between participants and potential delegates becomes difficult, policy discussion grows inefficient, and voting drags on because of the number of potential delegates. These extended sessions can lead to voter fatigue, which may reduce future turnout at the precinct level.

Smaller groups avoid these inefficiencies, but having too many small caucuses could lengthen the overall selection process. A gathering of two to three hundred participants should be optimal for conducting business efficiently.

Expected turnout must also be considered when drawing precincts. Since participation rarely reaches 100%, administrators should size precincts based on projected attendance. If 200 participants is ideal and typical turnout is 50%, precincts should be drawn to include roughly 400 registered voters.

Multiple Seats

The General Caucus can also fill offices with multiple seats, such as members of the House of Representatives or electors to the Electoral College. One option is to use a single congressional-district or elector-district caucus to determine each office, following the same process described above. Another is to use a single statewide caucus to determine all of a state's representatives or electors at once; this would require a proportional method such as the Hamilton Method in the final caucus to divide the seats among different factions. As a means of decentralization, however, separate district caucuses are recommended.

Why It Works

It eliminates money in politics

The General Caucus is a series of meetings among caucus-goers and delegates, and it does not need money to operate. There are no individual campaigns requiring vast sums to sway voters with advertising. It is not an election — it is a caucus.

It removes political parties

The influence of the parties is severely reduced. Any potential office holder must pass through the precinct caucus, the state house-district caucus, and the final statewide caucus. Even if a party nominates a candidate, that nominee must attend and be chosen at all three.

It mitigates media influence

Because millions of people participate at the precinct level, with thousands of potential delegates advancing to the district caucuses, neither legacy nor social media can concentrate its power on any particular candidate. Voters engage directly with one another rather than being steered by media narratives that too often prioritize sensationalism over substance — which in turn strengthens voter independence.

Additional Benefits

• No ballots to steal or manipulate
• Populism defeated
• Tyrannically-minded candidates become irrelevant
• Foreign intelligence influence eliminated
• No tribalism
• The horse race removed, issues made the priority

Conclusion

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the secretaries of state and county clerks to refine the structure of the caucuses. With proper attention, the General Caucus provides a structured, scalable way to select public officials through deliberative meetings — from the precinct level to statewide assemblies. Its flexibility accommodates elections at every level while keeping group sizes manageable for effective deliberation. By requiring that delegates be present and chosen from within each caucus, the system promotes direct engagement and keeps representation rooted in local communities.