"Texas Two-Step" Twist

(Originally posted 3/5/08 the Day after the Texas primary and caucuses.) When I first moved here to Texas I kept hearing people use the phrase, “a hot mess.” It took a while for me to understand that it meant that something was not only disorganized but that more than likely it was rotten at the core. After my experience at last nights’ presidential caucus, I now know exactly what the the phrase means. If we’re lucky, someone will discover the rotten core and make sure that those responsible are held to account and that the results of election are scrutinized closely.

Hopefully someone is paying very close attention to what can only be called the “Texas Two-Step Twist.” They euphemistically call it the Texas Two-Step because it is a sort of a dance you must perform in order to ensure that your vote counts in the delegate allocation process. Not only do you have to cast a vote you must return to your polling place after the polls close to caucus and effectively vote again for your candidate, e.g. two steps.

The twist part comes from the fact that last night people had to be contortionists in order to vote in the Texas presidential primary and make sure their vote counted for delegate purposes. The most disorganized, poorly supervised and disrespectful exercise of the voting process that I have experienced in over thirty years of voting was rife with opportunities for corruption. (Believe me I’ve seen some doozies but nothing like this!)

Election officials all over the region openly admitted to voters that they did not know what they were doing--they had never done it before. That being the case, my fellow-voters and I were puzzled that there were no written instructions for election officials or for voters. Not only were there no instructions but there were no signs to direct people to the right place. Many polling places had no public address systems so instruction were often garbled, misunderstood, passed from person to person (we all know what happens with that) or not heard at all. Election officials and caucus chairs were standing on tables and chairs in order to be seen and heard. In other cases, voters had to take charge to bring some order to the process. Common sense was in short supply in caucus rooms all over North Texas.

The litany of curiosities is long and disturbing: Polling places were changed at the last minute (one or two days before the election; Voter education was almost non-existent consequently, voters didn’t understand the process; There were too-few voting machines; The process for the election of caucus officers was inconsistent across precincts; Caucus signature-gathering processes varied from precinct to precinct; Some precinct captains didn’t know how many delegates they were alloted.

Who knows how many people were denied the right to caucus. My guess that there were many. I also guess that perhaps equally as many signature pages were lost and/or destroyed because they were allowed to float around the caucus rooms from person to person with no election official supervision and then were not secured in any way when they were completed and before the official count.

At some polling places people were forced to stand outside in the cold for hours before being allowed to vote or caucus. Some got tired and left. Those who stayed were met with procedural maneuvering in efforts to halt voting and manipulate the caucus process with motions and procedural votes with which they were unfamiliar. In many cases, the rooms were so full and noisy that few people were aware that any procedure was taking place at all.

In my polling place people who had voted but forgot their voter registration cards when they came back for the caucus were told by election officials that they did not have adequate records on site to provide them with their registration numbers and to just put a check-mark by their names and they would fill in the number later. Huh?

Well, it was my first experience with this and I ended up becoming a delegate because I want to follow this process to the end. I was aware that Texas is one of the most politically corrupt states in the nation but I have a feeling that all the stops will be pulled out this time. This is just the beginning. We know that Republicans were instructed to caucus for Senator Clinton and did. The idea is that Hillary will be easier to attack than Barack.

At any rate, I hope I make it as far as the statewide cause in Austin if not to the national convention in Denver. I hate politics but these are historic times. I want to be part of it.