Last Saturday, I did something I've never even considered ever doing before in my life. I showed up at a Democratic Party event.

The occasion was our state's Democratic presidential caucus, and I wasn't the only newbie. In my precinct one of the smallest ones of the 15 present, with just over a dozen attendees only two or three had ever gone to a caucus before. (One had gone, but not in our state.) In the social hall at the Central Area Senior Center, a space that can generously hold 150- or so people, by the time we got going a half-hour late, about three-fourths of those in the hall were standing. The fire marshall would've had a fit, but they never bothered us probably they were too busy at some other caucus site with the same problem. The turnout everywhere was overwhelming.

My first, overarching observation as folks crowded into the CASC was how white everyone was. Here we were, in the heart of the Central District, in a facility that specializes in services for elderly African-Americans, and out of the many hundreds in the room a couple dozen max weren't white. I know the CD is gentrifying, but not that much it was also a testimony to who was and wasn't willing to spend two hours at a political party event. On a day when the unifying theme on everyone's lips was the desire to beat Bush, the political constituency that almost unanimously voted against him four years ago was conspicuous by its absence on its own ideological and literal home turf.

Beyond that? It was noisy, messy, full of a lot of people that weren't clear how it was all supposed to work, yet somehow it did. In less than two hours even the largest, most contentious precincts had all sorted out which volunteers would become delegates or alternates, representing which candidates, for the next level of party organizing (scheduled for early May, in a process that will eventually winnow down the state delegates to go to the national convention this summer). Those who wanted stayed to consider resolutions. I didn't.

My precinct gathering was more than anything else reminiscent of last year's neighborhood anti-war groups where politics was the device whereby a bunch of city dwellers belatedly discover who their neighbors are. Beyond the predictable Bush-bashing, the main topics of conversation (while the precinct officer and secretary tried to figure out the rules) were: sorting out who lived in which apartment building; rent or own?; a great local gym several of us went to; and the need for a good new breakfast cafe in the neighborhood. This was not the revolution.

Those sort of social elements obviously aren't part of the usual voting process, which for most of us these days means getting a ballot in the mail and sending it back in. But beyond that, it's hard to see why voters, regardless of party affiliation (or lack of one), would want this process. With Washington's open primary system struck down by the courts (and likely to stay that way on appeal), this is the wave of the future: where the political parties control the experience and voters, in order to participate in a nominating process, must declare themselves as a party member.

That means far fewer people participate--the record numbers Saturday, perhaps 200,000 statewide, still represents only about one out of 20 eligible voters in our state. It gives the vote, in essence, only to people who have the time and motivation to participate. In an era where the electoral trend is toward voting by mail and other reforms that make voting easier and elections more participatory, this moves things sharply in the wrong direction. At the end of the day, what I got for my experience beyond a good tip on a gym, a paper cup of orange juice, and the chance to vote publicly rather than by secret ballot was the same privilege of having my vote count that a primary election would have offered. Only it took two hours rather than five minutes.

But you can see in an instant why the Democratic Party and, next month, the Republicans as well like this system. The Democrats now have 200,000 mostly new names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mails to put on their phone bank, direct mail, and spam lists. A significant number of us volunteered to come back (as delegates or alternates) for the next all-day event. And these are people who've already invested a couple hours of time and are willing to state publicly they are Democrats even though many, like me, probably don't consider ourselves even remotely loyal to the Democratic Party, or loyal beyond November 2.

But in this brave new electoral world there is no room for the independent, and there's plenty of subtle pressure to get with the herd, hence John Kerry's ascendancy. Last I checked, elections were supposed to be run so as to best exercise our democratic rights, not for the ultimate fund-raising and organizing convenience of the two major parties.

It's no secret that I want Bush out. Over the last three years, I've said as much to millions of readers and listeners. But I miss my freedom to choose to support whichever candidate and party I want in privacy, without social or other pressures. The riotous, messy, joyous gatherings last Saturday were certainly participatory, and great party-building exercises. But they were still a poor substitute for the secret ballot. And democracy.