By Ethan Walshe
Managing Editor

As most everyone should know by now, we have entered an election year. The Republican candidates are well into their campaigns and Monday, January 3, marked the first in a series of contests between these candidates to determine who will receive the nomination for presidency. There are two kinds of these contests, caucuses and primaries. Many people hear these words thrown around on the news these days, but what is the real difference between the two?

The main difference between the two is that a caucus is more of an open forum style of voting whereas a primary is much more similar to a general election. During  a caucus, registered caucus goers will report to their voting location, a town hall for example,  for what will end up being a more time consuming process. Voters may sit at a table representing their allegiance to a candidate. There could be a table for Mitt Romney, one for Newt Gingrich, one for Rick Santorum etc. Here, voters may engage in debate and discussion ab out the issues at hand and why they believe the candidate they support is the right choice.

Over the course of their time at the caucus location, representatives of the running candidates or the candidates themselves can explain why they should receive your vote. They can answer questions and the caucus goers can debate amongst themselves. If they decide at some point that they should vote for someone else, they may switch tables. At some point, votes are cast in a public way, as in raising hands. This very open style of voting can sway voters opinions when they see how the people around them have cast their vote.

The caucus style of voting is only used in twelve states nowadays, as it is far more time consuming than the primary process. It is often used by more tradition-based states.

The entire point of these processes is to award delegates and the amount of delegates a candidate receives determines if they are the nominee for president. A candidate needs 1144 votes in order to win. The delegates are divided up as follows: If a state has 20 delegates up for contention and Mitt Romney, for example, receives 60% of the vote, Jon Huntsman receives 25% and Rick Santorum receives 15%, candidate A gets 12 delegates, candidate B gets five and candidate C gets three.

The first caucus, in Iowa, has passed and the first primary –New Hampshire primary–was on Tuesday, January 10. Many more are to follow in the coming months.