The Texas caucus and caucuses in general
Texas has both a primary and a caucus. In the primary voters come in
and in 5-10 minutes can usually cast their ballot. There is very
little excuse in my mind for a voter to contend they do not have time
to do this, even if you have a job , 5 screaming kids or are very old
and handicapped. A caucus on the other hand requires you to commit to
come after the polls have closed at 7:15 PM and stay around for at
least an hour and if they are heavily attended for hours to sign in and
to elect delegates to the senatorial convention. I ran one these
caucuses on March 4th in Dallas TX after having arrived at 6 AM to set
up the polls and working all day to see that voters were able to cast
their ballot in a timely fashion. I dropped off my election judges
materials finally around 10:30 to 11PM that night.
Most voters came into vote that day not knowing about the caucus. Of course some had been informed by the campaigns of either Clinton or Obama that they HAD to come back to "sign-in" for the caucus. My little old friend who has voted in every democratic primary since I have been doing this in 2001 came in and I asked are you coming back for the caucus. She said oh deary no honey I have to have my son drive me now and I don't think I can make it. Another young woman came in and I asked do you think you can come back and caucus. She said no my husband is out of town and I would have to find a baby sitter plus there is the TAKS test tomorrow and I have to get the children to bed. All day long we had some young college students hanging around outside though asking voters if they supported Obama and if they did telling them about the caucus and asking them to return. Turns out at least some of them, though they truly were registered in this precinct, were being paid by the Obama campaign to do this. I wonder if they were making more than the $7.00 an hour that the county pays election judges?
When the caucus sign in started after the polls closed, which was about 7:30PM because while the poll doors close at 7PM sharp the last voter has to finish and that took a bit of time, most people just signed the sheets with presidential preference and then left. We had 52 Obama and 32 Clinton people sign in but by the time we actually did the count and were trying to allocate delegates the place was getting much emptier. I could have contested this and forced the count to be retaken and if I had the Clinton fraction would have increased greatly. That was perfectly within my rights. I did not because I am the democratic chair of the whole precinct and need to serve even those who don't support my candidate. But if I were a person picked by a particular campaign I would have forced the issue and helped my candidate because I most likely would never have to deal with these people again. This indeed happened in many places where the normal precinct chair was too busy closing the polls or frankly just didn't care.
So Obama won more delegates out of our precinct than Hillary. Not because his followers were necessarily more dedicated but because of a multitude of reasons and because they are a different demographic than Hillary's. Caucuses are inherently undemocratic but in Texas this two step system is even worse because it disenfranchises even the people who have taken the time to come in and vote. Hillary won Texas but she will most likely come up short on delegates because of this weird system. I don't think anyone can convince me this is fair. And it is the accumulation of all these little unfairnesses that has given Obama a delegate lead (a similar thing happened in Nevada).
I know the mantra is Hillary is trying to steal the nomination from Obama but just as strong an argument can be made the other way. The truth is both are going to require the super delegates to reach the magic number and Hillary is no more stealing the nomination from Obama than he is stealing it from her. I know, I know, Obama's super delegates are going to turn out to be bigger and stronger and somehow oh so much better than Hillary's...... And the spirit of obama moved across the waters and he said let there be obama super delegates and there were obama super delegates and obama saw the super delegates, that they were good...........
Most voters came into vote that day not knowing about the caucus. Of course some had been informed by the campaigns of either Clinton or Obama that they HAD to come back to "sign-in" for the caucus. My little old friend who has voted in every democratic primary since I have been doing this in 2001 came in and I asked are you coming back for the caucus. She said oh deary no honey I have to have my son drive me now and I don't think I can make it. Another young woman came in and I asked do you think you can come back and caucus. She said no my husband is out of town and I would have to find a baby sitter plus there is the TAKS test tomorrow and I have to get the children to bed. All day long we had some young college students hanging around outside though asking voters if they supported Obama and if they did telling them about the caucus and asking them to return. Turns out at least some of them, though they truly were registered in this precinct, were being paid by the Obama campaign to do this. I wonder if they were making more than the $7.00 an hour that the county pays election judges?
When the caucus sign in started after the polls closed, which was about 7:30PM because while the poll doors close at 7PM sharp the last voter has to finish and that took a bit of time, most people just signed the sheets with presidential preference and then left. We had 52 Obama and 32 Clinton people sign in but by the time we actually did the count and were trying to allocate delegates the place was getting much emptier. I could have contested this and forced the count to be retaken and if I had the Clinton fraction would have increased greatly. That was perfectly within my rights. I did not because I am the democratic chair of the whole precinct and need to serve even those who don't support my candidate. But if I were a person picked by a particular campaign I would have forced the issue and helped my candidate because I most likely would never have to deal with these people again. This indeed happened in many places where the normal precinct chair was too busy closing the polls or frankly just didn't care.
So Obama won more delegates out of our precinct than Hillary. Not because his followers were necessarily more dedicated but because of a multitude of reasons and because they are a different demographic than Hillary's. Caucuses are inherently undemocratic but in Texas this two step system is even worse because it disenfranchises even the people who have taken the time to come in and vote. Hillary won Texas but she will most likely come up short on delegates because of this weird system. I don't think anyone can convince me this is fair. And it is the accumulation of all these little unfairnesses that has given Obama a delegate lead (a similar thing happened in Nevada).
I know the mantra is Hillary is trying to steal the nomination from Obama but just as strong an argument can be made the other way. The truth is both are going to require the super delegates to reach the magic number and Hillary is no more stealing the nomination from Obama than he is stealing it from her. I know, I know, Obama's super delegates are going to turn out to be bigger and stronger and somehow oh so much better than Hillary's...... And the spirit of obama moved across the waters and he said let there be obama super delegates and there were obama super delegates and obama saw the super delegates, that they were good...........
