The Enfield Democratic Party will be holding a caucus Sunday, September 10 at 4 PM, upstairs in the Enfield Community Building, 182 Enfield Main Road, to choose candidates to appear on the Democratic line in the general election this November.
What’s a caucus?
In New York State Democratic candidates get on the general election ballot in one of two ways:
Petitioning, followed by a primary (this is the method used for all county and state offices including the County Legislature, and here in Tompkins County by the Towns of Ithaca and Caroline)
Caucus, the method used by the Towns of Danby, Dryden, Enfield, Groton, Lansing, Newfield, and Ulysses.
A caucus is a meeting of registered party members (in this case, Democrats registered in the Town of Enfield). Party members gather, vote to select a caucus chair and secretary to run the meeting, then nominate candidates and vote to determine who will represent the party in the general election. All registered Enfield Democrats are welcome and encouraged to attend, to nominate candidates, to speak in their support, and then to vote to select our Democratic candidates for the November ballot.
The offices for which we will be selecting candidates are:
Town Supervisor (2 year term)
Town Councilperson (4 year term – 2 positions)
Town Councilperson (2 year term – to fill out the term of a Councilperson who resigned)
Town Clerk (2 year term)
Highway Superintendent (2 year term)
Town Justice (4 year term)
Other interested Enfielders who are not registered Democrats are welcome to observe the caucus, and may be allowed to address the caucus if the registered Democrats vote to allow that. Nominees chosen at the caucus do not necessarily have to be Democrats, but they do have to be nominated by Democrats.
The more Democrats who attend the caucus the more representative of Enfield it will be, so please come, and please pass the word to other Enfield Democrats who may not be on our email list.
Lastly, the method used by a town (caucus versus primary) can be changed by a two-thirds vote of town committee members at least four months prior to the date of the primary election for that year, so if there is interest in considering a change to a petition/primary method, we would need to make that decision before May of 2018 (assuming the next primary is in September 2018).