MEDIA ADVISORY

Procedures for February 19 Caucus Results

For internal media use only                              February 18, 2008

Contact:      Stuart E. McKinley                           808-596-2980 (ph)

                   Communications Director                808-596-2965 (fax)

                   Democratic Party of Hawaii             808-220-3496  (cell)

e-mail:

      hidemocomm@gmail.com

The Democratic Party of Hawai'i understands and respects the job that you are doing.  You are vital to us and an informed citizenry and we are dedicated to helping you do your job in a timely manner on caucus night.  As you well know, we are expecting an extremely high turnout, with a subsequent extremely heavy workload for the DPH volunteers and we are trying to balance your need for timely results with our desire to make sure that results are accurate and volunteers are allowed to do their work in an environment free of distractions and disruptions

Caucus sites

As a matter of courtesy, please let the District Chair know that you're on site and obtain permission to shoot inside the caucus.   While we will accommodate cameras, there will be no photography, video cameras or reporters allowed inside while the voting is taking place.  On-camera interviews should also be done outside the caucus site.

Here is the caucus site schedule for tomorrow night:

7:00 p.m. – official business begins, including presidential preference polling. 

7:30 p.m. – earliest that presidential polling can end.  It is expected that many precincts will not be able to complete polling in this timeframe.  Every person in line at 7:30 p.m. will be allowed to cast a ballot. People who show up after that will be allowed to cast a ballot if they are in the line to register.  If a precinct caucus site no longer has a line after 7:30 p.m., they are permitted to close the polling.  So, participants ae being urged to show up no later than 7:30 p.m.

Party Headquarters

Caucus results will be announced at DPH headquarters at Ward Warehouse.  In order to accommodate all of the news media and give party volunteers adequate work space, we have set up a media room next to headquarters, which will be available to you for scouting and set up from noon on Tuesday, February 19.  Please note that you are on your own for computer, internet, electrical and telephone hookups.  We anticipate a very large media presence, so please make appropriate arrangements. 

All interviews must be conducted in the media room.  Access to the party office will be limited and must be arranged through me.  Elisa Yadao will be assisting with media duties Tuesday night and will also serve as a point of contact for you.  She can be reached at 808-286-3693.

Our landlord, General Growth has prohibited the set up of cameras on the lanai area and hallway outside our office and there will be security on-hand to enforce these rules.  While it's going to be crowded, we ask that you confine yourselves to the media room.

We are trying to make arrangements for the live trucks to park in the Ward Warehouse lot.  Please contact me tomorrow (2/19) for updated information on this matter.

Release of caucus results

When we have a vote result (preliminary partial or preliminary final), Florence Kong Kee, DPH executive director, will make the announcement in the media room.    Following her announcement to the assembled media, I will send out a blast e-mail to all on this list as quickly as I can.

Finally, we will post the results on the front page of our website at:  www.hawaiidemocrats.org.

Any result that we post on Tuesday or Wednesday morning is preliminary.  Our rules say that districts have 48 hours to report their result to Party headquarters.  We expect that all District Chairs will report in as soon as they can, but we cannot promise you a complete tally on the 19th. 

Party rules state that we have 20 days to tabulate and verify the caucus results.  What we report on the 19th can in no way be viewed as final. 

We will provide District, County and state-wide totals, such as they are.  We will probably NOT be breaking the results down by congressional district until we report the final verified result.

Our best estimate is that we will not start receiving district results before 8:00 p.m. on the 19th.  We hope to announce a preliminary partial result no later than 9:00 p.m. and hope to provide a preliminary final result in time for the 10 p.m. newscasts.  If we can get a preliminary final result to you during the 10 o'clock newscasts, we will do that.

Mahalo for your patience and kokua.