March 4, 2008

Precinct 34 Caucus

The Texas Democratic Primary is complicated. It may have always been complicated, but it never mattered before – or rather it has not mattered since 1976. Or was it 1968? In any case, it matters now.

A quick recap – about 2/3s of the delegates are allocated by the primary. But not proportionally by voter (one man one vote) but allocated per Texas Senate District. We live in Senate District 13, and we have 7 delegates. Only one district has more – one of the Austin Districts, which has 8. The Senate Districts in the Rio Grand Valley have about 2. So our votes are more valuable than the votes down south. These delegates were allocated by Democratic voter turnout in the past two elections. Go figure.

We have just returned from our caucus. There were about 300 people waiting in line yet.

Now we are just back from the finalization of the caucus. We returned shortly before the started counting the votes. Now, you have to remember that this is a Democratic voting place. They had a tally of the votes, and they added them up BY HAND! Nobody had a calculator! My gosh!

After electing a precinct chairman and a secretary, they told us the final vote. 172 Obama, 120 Clinton, 2 uncommitted (What the heck? Uncommitted? Who comes to a caucus and votes uncommitted?)

That makes our precinct, #34, 59% Obama, 41% Clinton.

GO Obama!

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