I Want a Voice Part 3 – The Texas Primary/Caucus

It has been a long time since the second installment of this series where I try to describe ways to improve our “democratic” process to give everyone at least the feeling that they have a small voice in their government. This one was supposed to be about campaigns, but I am going to place that one on an indefinite hold and document my recent experience with the Texas primary/caucus process. The experience that voters receive here is certainly the poster child for a movement to standardize the nomination process for candidates running for national offices.

Where to start? OK, primary voting begins with early voting two weeks before the designated Tuesday for the general voting. Early voting is accommodated in a comparatively small number of locations. At any of these locations any registered voter, from any precinct, can vote provided that they provide proof of identification with a voter registration card or other accepted form that they can validate. This practice is in place for all primary elections and general elections. Voters who do not vote at one of the early voting locations must vote at their designated polling location on the scheduled Election Day.

Let’s stop there and examine this a bit. Early voting is a good idea and should be in place throughout the country. Is two weeks enough? In some cases probably not and I would suggest making it a full month. But two weeks is a whole lot better than nothing so if that became the standard everywhere it would be a major improvement, expanding the democratic process out to more people than it avails itself to now.

On Election Day, March 4 this year, a voter must vote at their designated precinct. Why? I suppose that there could be a good reason for this by those administering the process, but I see no need not to continue the process already established in the early voting locations. A person should be able to vote anywhere, thereby giving him or her added flexibility to make it to a polling station. This would permit one who leaves for work before the polls open and returns after they close to go out at lunch to the nearest polling location and vote. We have proven technology that is used for early voting that should be used on Election Day.

I voted early in the 2008 primary as I always do for general elections. I have never voted in a primary until this year, because I do not wish to be registered with either of the major parties. For the record I am still not registered in either party because Texas, unlike Pennsylvania, my previous state of residence, does not require a party, or no party, designation as a voter registration requirement. Actually, if the system were entirely fair there would be no voter registration, much less a party designation in some states.

In Texas all you have to do is tell the person validating your registration at the polling place in which primary you want to vote. This is another ridiculous requirement because if this were truly a democratic process anyone should be able to vote for anyone in a primary regardless of party. For example, I should be able to vote to nominate the best person for the job, which cannot always be the person in one or the other parties.

Back to my primary vote. I voted in the primary this year because, for the first time in a long time, I was actually inspired by a candidate and felt that I should do my part to try to get him nominated. So I voted and followed the news about the huge early voting turnout, during which time I learned that primary voting was only a part of the process. A caucus is also held after the primary voting concludes. Huh? Yes, two thirds of the delegates are purportedly determined through the primary vote and the other third comes from the caucus. If this seems pretty stupid to you, rest assured, it is.

The caucus begins after the poll closes and after the last vote is cast. Those in line to vote when the poll closes are permitted to vote thereby delaying the beginning of the caucus session. Our caucus began at about 30 minutes after the scheduled poll closing. Caucuses are convened for the two parties in separate rooms. Our room was a small chapel in a retirement home, which designed to accommodate 30 or 40 people. 81 voters who voted in the Democratic primary from our precinct showed up. The precinct chair person did not show up so one of the persons who was overseeing the poll took on the responsibility.

After reading the instructions given to her in an envelope full of papers she determined that the first order of business was to elect a caucus chairperson. We all agreed that she should just do it so she did. Next was the need to elect a caucus secretary. The chair person, a Clinton supporter, suggested person who was also working at the polling station who was an Obama supporter to ensure that the process was fair. We all agreed and that was done.

Each of us had to sign in on a preprinted form, filling our name, address, voter ID number and candidate preference. It seemed going into this process and even during the reading of the instructions that everyone had to show proof that they voted in the primary by providing the ticket that you are given at the polling station. No one at the early voting polling station told us to keep these tickets for the caucus, but I had kept mine because I put it into my wallet and had not thrown it away yet.

Well there were people without the tickets to prove that they had voted and also people who did not know their voter registration number. For all of these folks a validation was to occur after everyone signed in and before any other business could begin. There was a delay, but I have no confidence that any of this validation occurred. For one thing no one asked to see my, or anyone’s ticket. And it did not seem like anyone there was able to do any kind of validation. But the caucus continued.

When the last person signed in the sheets were tallied and the chairperson announced that there were 81 voters in our caucus, 48 for Clinton and 32 for Obama. I immediately said wait a minute, you are missing one. Neither the chairperson or secretary knew what I was talking about so I had to explain that 48 and 32 do not add up to 81. So they recounted and determined that the total for Obama was actually 33.

Based on some magic number unknown to anyone there our caucus was to receive 13 delegates to be sent to the state senatorial convention on March 29. This may have been determined by the number of votes cast in the primary, but I really doubt that these numbers were available to us. If they were I highly suspect their accuracy. But no matter, we had marching orders to split the 13 delegates based on the numbers of those at the caucus who supported each candidate. That resulted in eight Clinton delegates and five Obama delegates.

Since the Obama supporters were the smaller group they were asked to leave the room and caucus in the hall, which we did. The only thing that needed accomplished was to elect five delegates and five alternates to attend the convention. This was a very simple process in that the caucus secretary asked if anyone wanted to do it. We all said that she should and three others volunteered. No one else volunteered so I did so that we could get out of there. It had been a long night of a lot of sitting around doing nothing and I wanted to get out of there. The five delegates were set and five alternates were “elected” in a similar fashion. After we exchanged phone numbers and email addresses the caucus concluded.

So, based on my knowledge thus far there would be 13 of us going to the state senatorial convention, where I anticipated that there would be 39 total delegates from my precinct, one third from the caucus and two thirds from the primary. I was wrong.