The Process: For Candidates

Thank you for your interest in an iCaucus Endorsement!
We have carefully crafted an in depth, honest and unique process in identifying, interviewing and researching prospective candidates based on our core principles. Our process was developed to establish consistent procedures for ensuring candidates are thoroughly reviewed and effectively endorsed.

It is the intention of iCaucus not to just endorse the first candidate that minimally meets our requirements, but to consider all candidates for each office. Only after careful consideration, with help from these guidelines, do we decide who the best possible candidate is to endorse, within the time allowed.

Candidates must be referred or sponsored by an affiliate group or an iCaucus volunteer. The first step is to register using the Candidate Registration. This is located under the Vetting Tab at the top of the main page. Complete the information required and accept the agreements. Your information will be sent to the Vetting Director who will provide it to the correct Vetting Coordinator. Your information will be processed through our intitial requirements, then you be contacted. If you meet the intitial requirements you will receive the Candidate Vetting package and the CQQ Coordinator will send out the Vetting Questionnaire for your race (Federal, State or other).

Candidates have 1 week to complete the Questionnaire and submit.

Our vetting and endorsement process is broken into four parts:

Candidate Qualifying Questionnaire
Candidate Interview Process
Vetting Conference
Endorsement Vote by iCaucus Volunteers and participating groups in the District

STEP 1: QUALIFYING QUESTIONNAIRE

Please familiarize yourself with our invitation letter/guidelines to gain full understanding of our Expectations and what iCaucus stands for. We are non-partisan. We focus on Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government, The Constitution and Citizen Representation.

Candidates must be intent on running a true campaign and have filed their intent to run a campaign with the appropriate agencies (FEC, State Elections commission, etc) and have a viable campaign team and website

Must have a sponsoring group or an iCaucus referral.
Review the iCaucus Articles videos
Complete the Candidate Registration provide all necessary information and sign the Candidate Agreement.
Upon review, accepted candidates will be provided with secure access to the Online Vetting Questionnaire for completion.
When the CQQ is complete and scored if you receive 70% or better, you will recieve notification from the CQQ Coordinator and the required background form. Note: Vetting Coordinator has signed a confidentiality Agreement and will be the only Volunteer with iCaucus who will see the background reports.
Participate in a recorded interview.

STEP 2: INTERVIEW PROCESS
Interview with Nick Popaditch Once a Candidate has submitted their information for review and entered into the Vetting Process, the CQQ Coordinator for their Region or State will send the Candidate necessary access to the on-line questions. Candidates are expected to complete the online Vetting Questionnaire within one week of receipt of access information. Upon successful completion of the online vetting questionnaire:

Results are placed on our Candidate Tracking Form.
The Regional or State Interview Coordinator is contacted to set up a Video Conference interview with a panel of citizen's and the Candidate, we call this the Candidate job interview.
Candidate Interview is scheduled/confirmed
Interview is held. Note: All Candidate Interviews are recorded, using our on-line Video conferencing system. Interview is opened with the verbal agreement to be recorded, and an introduction by the Candidate, followed by question and answer period.
Candidate is notified of iCaucus Member's Conference period and date of endorsement vote. Conference and endorsement vote begin after all candidates for that particular race have completed the vetting steps above. The Candidates CQQ and interview will be made public at the same time. Conferencing is where all interested citizen's in the district of the race can register to participate in the endorsement vote, review the CQQ's and interview. Note: all non-iCaucus members will be able to use a single use registration to participate in the endorsement survey, however at the completion of their vote their email will be scrubbed from our system. We will not garner email addresses for any purpose other than the endorsement vote, outside of direct Volunteer registration

STEP 3: MEMBERSHIP CONFERENCE
If there is more than one good candidate for any given office (as determined by the Interview committees), once all interviews for a District are done, the interview(s), the answers to the vetting questions the candidates website, and the Conference instructions are posted by the Vetting Director for that Region or State on icaucus.org in the State Group vetting forum. Notification is then sent out to iCaucus volunteers and affiliated groups in the District.

The conference period should last for a minimum of 1 week, and no longer than 2 weeks.
Questions from iCaucus volunteers or registered affiliated groups (as submitted through icaucus.org), will be forwarded to the Candidate by the interview coordinator. Candidate responses will subsequently be posted throughout the duration of the conference period.
Only eligible Volunteers of iCaucus and those who register to participate within the District are allowed to vote.
Conference Period closed

STEP 4: CANDIDATE VOTING BY IC VOLUNTEERS AND REGISTERED PARTICIPANTS
Once the conference period has closed, iCaucus Members are then invited to vote for or against endorsement.

The voting period should last for a minimum of 1 week and no more than 2 weeks.
Only those qualified members can vote.
The National Vetting Director will send the voting email to the designated members. There will be a one-week period for members to submit their vote. At the end of that week, the State Vetting Coordinator will calculate and score the votes. This information will be provided to the Vetting Team, the members, the Candidate(s), and posted on the website.
If the vote is to endorse the Candidate, then the Candidate and the members will be notified and a Press Release Issued. If the vote is to not endorse then the Candidate and members will be notified. If a 70% for a Single Candidate vote, or 60% in a Multiple Candidate Vote is not reached then we will not endorse a Candidate in that race.
If our Candidate does not win the primary, then we will not endorse a Candidate in that race.

NOTE: The independence Caucus does not manage or run any candidates campaigns. The candidate's campaign is the sole responsibility of the candidate. iCaucus will oversee the citizen's vetting process, promote the iCaucus endorsements, provide information for members and affilate groups in districts on how to support our endorsed candidates through community forums, and opposition research to educate the citizens. (training for working with the State and District Managers will designate a Campaign Liaison for each endorsed Candidate, chosen from iCaucus members who reside within the candidate's district, who will establish impaign teams. Training will be provided to coordinate a Campaign Team, establish various positions and set up the Campaign efforts). Areas of help that can be provided include, but are not limited to:

Volunteers recruited from current members to join or assist the candidate's volunteer organization.
Town-Hall Forums to discuss IC and why we are endorsing the candidate
Research teams and research data
Fundraising events
Door to Door exposure
Contacts in otherline questions be send and cc the Regional Rep.

If you are interested in being endorsed by iCaucus, please contact our Vetting department at vettinginfo@icaucus.org to begin the process. We look forward to learning more about you!