Republican party voters planning to cast ballots for the nation’s highest office in 2016, at least in the first of the two election cycles, will see a major new change coming for their party with the GOP hierarchy opting to become a caucus state when voting for a party presidential nominee.

Although the May primary election will remain unchanged for all other offices that will be on the ballot, the presidential candidates in the Republican party will be voted on early, aligning the state with several others where presidential caucuses are held well before Kentucky’s primary in the spring.

Republicans who cast a vote for one of several candidates on the ballot for president will vote, statewide, on Saturday, March 5 at locations chosen by each county’s Republican party officials.

In Clinton County, the “caucus,” or voting is tentatively scheduled to be held at the Clinton County High School cafeteria, according to Clinton County Republican Chairman Doug Thrasher.

Statewide balloting will be held for Republican voters between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. local prevailing time.

Thrasher noted he had been in contact with Clinton County Schools Superintendent Charlotte Bernard about using the facility as the balloting location but said it was a tentative location at this point and if for some reason is changed, plenty of notification will be given.

The state’s Republican voters will vote for their presidential preference in these caucuses operated by party officials. The party plan is to have at least one location in every county. Larger counties such as Jefferson, Fayette and several others will have multiple voting locations.

During the traditional primary next May, all other offices that will be up for election will appear on that ballot, as will apparently be the case for President in the Democratic primary race, as the Democrat party has not indicated it plans to switch to the caucus system when voting on its nominee.

The idea of holding a presidential caucus in addition to the traditional May primary was first proposed to the Republican Party’s Central Committee by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. The move allows Paul to run for both president and re-election to the U.S. Senate, meaning basically he will be on both the March caucus ballot and May primary ballot, running for President and Senate, respectively.

Party officials, however, say the change is not entirely about Sen. Paul’s situation, but about Kentucky becoming more relevant in selection of the eventual presidential nominee.

Kentucky’s presidential delegates will be awarded on the basis of the percentage of statewide votes won by each candidate. For example, if one candidate received 50 percent of the vote, he would receive one-half of the state’s delegates at the Republican National Convention, with the remaining delegates split among the percentage of votes received by other candidates.

In some states, the caucus winner receives all of the delegates.

By holding the election earlier in the year, candidates are expected to pay more attention to Kentucky voters and spend more time in the state.

The March time-line is also very close to the so-called “Super Tuesday” vote when several states near Kentucky hold primaries or caucuses, making the stops in Kentucky more attractive to candidates.

Thrasher said that since the caucus election is a new concept, both the state and here locally, there will be a media campaign, including social media, to educate GOP voters on the new system

“We (local GOP party) plan on running a media campaign to make the public more aware about the caucus system and how it operates,” Thrasher said. He also added there would be a future meeting of the Republican party planned to distribute information and the public would be notified of such a meeting in advance.

All Republican voters are urged to plan now to attend and vote for the presidential candidate of their choice on March 5, 2016.