Clinton Projected Winner Of Texas Primary

Tue, 03/04/2008 - 11:58pm

NBC and CNN have called the Texas primary for Hillary Clinton. I hope you didn't have anything to do for the next seven weeks, or three months. Dig in and get comfortable - this race is far from over.

Obama will win caucus by about 10

By Lorenzo Sadun

Wed, 03/05/2008 - 8:32am

As of 8:30 AM, Obama is leading the caucus 52-48. However, the Clinton-friendly Senate district have reported more than the Obama-friendlies. If you scale each district up to 100%, Obama wins 55-45.

Serious Concerns about the Caucus processes in Texas

By unchainthedogs

Wed, 03/05/2008 - 8:56am

I personally witnessed a totally chaotic, disorganized, unchecked, unlawful caucus process in East Ft. Worth. There was no cut off of sign in, the Election Judge never let the captains of each team check the polling book to make sure that votes were legitimate if person had no proof of voting in the primary, there was no call to order during the entire process, all votes were not verified, Precinct Convention was not allowed to be called to order, etc. If we cannot prove that each person is the person they say they are, or that if you have no proof of voting in the primary and we cannot verify that you did, and you can still walk in at 10pm and sign in as a vote during the caucus because the Election Judge will not let anyone call the caucus to order and people are saying they signed in but did not vote in primary and there is no checking system, then that is an unfair way to run any type of "election." I am appalled at what I witnessed at Precinct 1170 in East Ft. Worth. If the caucuses were run like this in other areas, especially in heavy turn out areas, I say the caucus part of the elections mean nothing. It's a disgrace to this Country and its citizens. It won't be long until we start killing each other like other countries do if we continue on this path. Someone please inform me of the source of the problem and what the solution is as I am at a loss and totally disenfranchised with the Democratic Party in Texas!

County elections

By George Nassar

Wed, 03/05/2008 - 11:09am

It sounds like your frustration is with the county elections board, not with the Democratic party. The election judge has *no* authority or involvement in the caucus process; his/her job begins and ends with the primary — and specifically ends with being *required* to hand over the voting lists to the convention chairs. By one, refusing to give those over, and two, interfering in the caucus process in his/her role as election judge (as opposed to just being another caucusgoer, which is allowed), the judge was way out of line. Your next phone call should be to your county elections office -- unless it is first to your county Democratic party office, to see if they can help you report that.

Or the state

By John McClelland

Wed, 03/05/2008 - 11:12am

The state could have funded counties better so that we would have more locations to vote and caucus. Granted they base it on the last turnout, thus we had no funding for multiple locations. However, they saw this coming at the last minute and could have done something to allow us to open more polls, but they did not.

County says not their problem, call the Party, Party says...

By unchainthedogs

Wed, 03/05/2008 - 12:27pm

Thanks George - I called the County Elections. They said anything that happens after 7pm is the Party's problem that they "do not handle caucuses." He did say that we should have received a list of voters which is only given to Precinct Chair. The Election Judge acted as a Temp. Precinct Chair and controlled the whole caucus and would not let us elect a Precinct Chair!! I called the Party and reported this, the lady took notes, did not ask my contact info or anything, said they would tally all the complaints, report it to State and hope some laws are changed! I asked about the # of voters who signed in at caucus that may not be eligiable to vote and she said the Delegates will be checked but the damage as already been done by the time you elect delegates, because all of the math is wrong if you don't know who you are counting!! This is pathetic and unlawful. As I said, I am appalled, disgusted, disenfranchised generally in this whole caucus thing!! Where have our Party leaders been and what in the HEL* have they been doing in the past 4 - 5 months???!!!

difference

By George Nassar

Thu, 03/06/2008 - 9:08am

Well, that's a bit of a different issue, now, isn't it? If the election judge wasn't an election judge when he/she did that, there's no interference. If the election judge said, "well, I'm election judge, so because of that I'm running this caucus," then there's a problem that the county is responsible for. Even so, it sounds like you called the state party; you probably wanted to contact your *county* party to have an actual effect on this. In fact, that would probably have been the most effective phone call the night of the caucus.

Now, if the election judge did *not* do that specifically, he wasn't acting as election judge. At that point, regular rules apply. The temporary convention chair should be the chair of the precinct. If that's who you were referring to, you can go to your next county Executive Committee meeting and bring this up. Anyone else can be temporary convention chair as well, but only if the precinct chair isn't there. And then you're as valid a temporary precinct chair as the election judge is, because he's just another caucusgoer.

And if there isn't a precinct chair, of course, why is that not you?

Local involvement doesn't play well as a fair-weather thing. A lot of caucusgoers were stymied because they attended their caucus and have never set foot within their county party executive committee meetings -- often not even the party office! I'm fairly confident that those who have been involved, on the whole, 1) know "what the party's been doing in the past 4-5 months" and 2) had in general a better idea of how the caucus was supposed to run.

Bottom line, you want to talk to your county party. It sounds like who you spoke to at the state party did everything she could. And she's right -- it's not like you can just hold another caucus. Best shot for verifying those signatures is the county party; they may be able to get their hands on the voting lists for the precinct -- maybe.

I still fail to see how this is somehow a failure of the party. The whole point of the caucus process is that control is given directly to the voters. The inevitable tradeoff is some level of responsibility in knowing the process, I figure.