An election official named Gene Cates provided what appears to be misinformation leading to potential disenfranchisement of voters. Former city manager Charles Boswell can confirm as the following was spoken directly to his face about five people in front of me. I paraphrase Cates: if voters didn't stay on-site for the actual election of delegates after they signed in, their votes would not count.
This appears to directly contradict the Texas Election Code Section 174.022 (c) which says: If...participants have signed in, any participant who wishes to leave may do so and their sign in WILL count toward the delegate allocation for each candidate.
Not only do Cates' statements appear to be wrong, it would have been logistically impossible for the hundreds, maybe up to a thousand people to wait for the three hours in a heated area. I saw groups of people leave after hearing this message. The workers behind the table were telling each participant the opposite...that they were welcome to stay but did not have to. This was terribly irregular, and it must have been very disappointing for first time voters. Some voters would have to wait in line for at least an hour and in many cases much longer to receive this message. Cates was sending surrogates (other voters) to spread the "your vote wont count unless you hang around for three more hours" message to the incredibly long lines of participants waiting to sign in.
Additionally, the scene completely lacked order. They were running out of sign-in sheets and people were rushing around to make copies. Lines were around the building, and it wasn't until I'd been waiting for about 30 minutes that somebody told us there was a much shorter line for my precinct. There was no signage and such a severe shortage of precinct workers that people were being pulled out of the crowd to work behind the tables checking names and addresses.
Obviously, very disappointing, and I hate the effect that this must have had on the high percentage of voters that have been energized by this amazing election where we will have an African-American or female Democratic nominee.
7 comments:
I'm too tired to read this very closely but just skimming over it, it sounds alot like my experience! I am totally disgusted with the whole Democratic Party, not the campaigns but the Party. We are so disorganized, no one knows what the hell is going on, who's in charge, if the calls that are being made are w/in the law, etc. Really a disgrace!! YUK!!
Suzette & Steve:
The reason your caucuses were bad is probably because whoever was running them had never done so before, and they had to deal w/ record turnout their first time.
Mr. Cates was definitely wrong... you do not have to stay the whole time. You DO however need to stay until the entire group votes to accept the vote totals. If you leave before this point and there is a roll call (rare, but if somebody wanted to play hardball it could happen), your vote won't count because there's no way to prove that somebody else didn't sign you in.
As soon as the numbers are approved, you can jet.
Please seriously consider running your caucus next election. Educating yourself and running it yourself is the best way to ensure a smooth process. The only reason ours went well was because three of us had run one before, and a few more had undergone caucus training provided by one of the campaigns.
Thanks Bernie - I am really so disgusted with the process even this morning (the morning after). You are correct, at my polling place none of us had done this before (in either camp). The Election Judge NEVER would give any of us (either camp) the polling book so that we could look up to see who had voted if they did not have proof. We never closed the line so people were able to walk up until 10pm if they wanted, there was no calling of anything to order until 3 hours after sign in, lots of people left. The Judge would not let us elect our Chair & Sect. until the votes were "verfied" we didn't get to see how and if the votes were verified. There was a guy there that said he signed in but did not vote in the Primary. No sign ins were disqualified. It was a TOTAL MESS! I have sent in emails and calls to the campaign that this whole precinct should be contested and every single sign in should be verified. I am so ashamed and appalled at the caucus process and the Democratic Party. I wished so bad that I did not have to associate myself with it at this point. In my experience, Democrats are ALWAYS disorganized. What is the solution? I'm totally disenfranchised by it all. At this rate, how do we know that those lines in Dallas & Houston of 4000 caucusers are being verified? If they do it like we did it in my precinct in Ft. Worth, this election is very unfair as every single vote should be a ligitimate vote.
Bernie, I'm curious about two things:
1. Given that this was my first ever experience with caucusing in Texas, where did you get your experience?
2. What do you recommend I do to make this chaos better next time? How do I get involved?
3. (Optional) Can you get me deal on a bike?
I think my experience was somewhere between Jim Crow and Jeffersonian bliss.
There were two precincts caucusing at the Valley View Elementary School gym in Westlake, so the crowd was huge. We waited outside till after eight before they started letting people in (luckily the weather in Austin was great). Between seven and eight, the election judge would come out and try to give updates or instructions, but didn't have a PA, so when she started talking only the people in front could hear anything until the people in back started shouting, "We can't hear you!", then no one could hear anything. There was no order to getting in - just a huge mob of people trying to squeeze through the one set of double doors to the gym. Things got a little testy about 10 minutes after they opened the doors and came out saying "Clinton voters only." I think the Obama contingent was backed up to the door, and there was room at the Clinton tables, but it caused a minor ruckus.
When I got to the table, I only had my driver's license and the person working the table initially said I couldn't use that. I knew I could and told her to look me up in the book, so it worked out, but I could see someone else just walking out thinking they'd blown an hour and a half for nothing.
I talked to someone in line who was friends with the precinct chair and said they'd never had more than 30 people show up and it was usually less than 10. There had to be over a 1000 on Tuesday. I think the TDP was like a deer in the headlights; they knew they were about to get hit by a semi but couldn't react.
Yhea.."a deer in the headlights about to get hit by a semi" That's what's so despicable about the whole night! We've all been watching the news, we all knew there was going to be record turn out for primaries and caucuses. The Texas Democratic Party Leaders and State, County and local government should have planned accordingly. No excuses. We deserve to have lawful and fair elections no matter if first time caucusers show up or not. I called the County Elections office yesterday and asked questions, they said they have no responsibility after 7pm, it then goes to the Dem Party. I asked about the voting book we were suppose to see in order to tell if someone had voted in the primary - they said, the book stays with Election Judge, but we should have received a list of voters in the Primary which we did not. I called the Dem Party, they took notes and said they would tally all of the calls they get, present it to State and hope laws are changed. IMO, this is intolerable, again, what in the hell or "leaders" for, it was their responsibility to MAKE SURE we had lawful caucuses and they failed. Shame on them!!
Please report all caucus problems to the Tarrant County Democratic Party at the email address below, please put the precinct # in the subject line:
tcdp@tcdp.com
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