The Iowa Republican and Democratic parties together announced Tuesday that they will hold the state’s 2010 primary caucuses on a Saturday, a move that party leaders say is designed to increase turnout in a non-presidential year.
Officials from both parties said it is the first time in recent history that the caucuses will take place on a Saturday, but would not speculate on whether the change would carry over to the 2012 presidential election. Traditionally, Iowa’s caucuses are scheduled on a weekday evening.
In a joint statement, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn and his Democratic counterpart, Mike Kiernan, announced that the precinct caucuses will be held on Saturday, Jan. 23 at 1 p.m. They said the switch to a weekend would be “good for Democrats, good for Republicans, and good for our political process.”
Norm Sterzenbach, the executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party, described the move as an experiment
to find out whether a Saturday caucus would encourage greater voter participation.
“We don’t really know or have an answer for that, so we thought we would find out,” Sterzenbach said in an interview. “We’re going to use the caucuses as an opportunity to organize for the 2010 election, and part of the idea is to get more activists on the precinct level involved in their local parties.”
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