The San Juan County Democrats saw more than 837 voters turn out for the Democratic Precinct Caucus on Saturday, March 26 at the Friday Harbor High School.

“We pre-printed 500 registration forms,” said Diane Martindale, executive committee member for the San Juan County Democrats, “Already this morning we’ve sent someone over to Printonyx to print more!”

The main event was planned for the high school’s 200 person capacity cafeteria but by 10:30 a.m. with voters lined up down the block, the venue was changed to the school’s much larger gymnasium.

San Juan County Democratic chair David Dehlendorf gave a brief explanation on how the caucus works before sending residents to separate voting rooms depending on which of the nine San Juan Island precints they live in.

Participants in each precint group were given time to advocate for their presidential nominee choice and to vote on which delegates to send to the San Juan County Democratic Convention on May 1.

All of San Juan county had 105 delegate spaces open. Sanders received 79 delegates and Clinton received 25. There was one unallocated delegate.

Including San Juan Island, 18 individual precinct caucuses were held on seven different islands, with 2,039 in total attendance. Sanders received 1,580 votes, or 77.5 percent of the total, while Clinton received 446, or 21.9 percent.

Washington’s Democratic Party will choose it’s presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton entirely by the voting of delegates at each caucus.

The final choice candidate to run in the November 8 national election is made at the National Democratic Convention in July.

With a huge voter turnout throughout Washington–over 230,000 people voted, Sanders won by a landslide, claiming 19,159 delegates to Clinton’s 7,140.

The San Juan County Republican party held their precinct caucus on Feb. 20 at the Friday Harbor Middle School.

Stay updated with all your local election coverage at www.sanjuanjournal.com.