Thursday Oct 30, 2008
Just 5 days to go before the election. Of course, the election
is already happening in the 30-some states that support early
voting. Being a bit of a political junkie, I'm all set to watch
lots of TV on Tuesday night.
I quite honestly don't want another electoral college squeaker
like the last two elections. I do think if McCain is going to
win, it will be a squeaker. If Obama is going to win, probably
not as much so, if we believe the polls. It will be interesting
to see how well the polls match reality. While I'm hoping they
do, I've also seen enough times where the polls are messed up to
wait for the ultimate poll on Tuesday before I start celebrating
or pouting :).
Wednesday Mar 05, 2008
Yesterday I voted in the Texas primary at my polling place,
Round Rock High School, in the morning. The Democratic side
seemed busier than the Republican side (that's a switch!), but
didn't have lines at that time, around 9:30 a.m.
In the evening, I attended the caucus, or precinct convention,
at the same location. The caucus was supposed to start at 7:15
p.m. or shortly after the last voter voted, but we weren't let
in the building until 7:55. We all had to sign in and give our
presidential preference, and apparently had to have our
credentials verified, but I don't know if everyone got the
message on that. We had about 130 people show up, which is
impressive in what's been a heavily Republican district. I
recognized at least 4 of my neighbors there, and that was nice
to see. Sometime we Democrats feel a bit lost amongst our
conservative neighbors.
The Clinton campaign complained that at some precinct the Obama
supporters controlled the caucus packets, which are apparently
just the instructions and paperwork. In our case, the temporary
chair was a Clinton supporter. The first order of business
after calling the meeting to order and signing in was to elect a
permanent precinct convention chair and secretary. Two
candidates ran for chair, one an 18-year-old high school senior
supporting Obama, and another a 30-something Clinton supporter.
It was close, but the 18-year-old won 17-15. Someone then
nominated the Clinton supporter for vice chair, and we approved
that by acclamation.
After this, the chair announced the vote count. Obama won
around 59% to 41% or something close to that. We had 16
delegates to send to the county convention in Georgetown on
March 29, so Obama got 10 and Clinton got 6. I was in the Obama
camp and we had 10 volunteers to be delegates, and 4 of us,
including me, volunteered to be alternates.
I think the rules for all this are a bit weird. You can vote in
just the primary and the caucus, but not just in the caucus. I
suppose the idea is that the people who care about the party get
a second shot at voting. But I think Clinton has a point about
the caucuses excluding those who have to work that night or have
other duties. We have 12 hours to vote but we have to be at the
caucus at a specified time.
I enjoyed the experience, and kind of regret that I didn't raise
my hand to be a delegate to the county convention. Maybe
they'll call me as an alternate.
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