Democratic Circus in the Bayou City
March 5th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Mass chaos reined at two precinct conventions I attended in Houston last night. Hard not to conclude that the state and local party could have done a better job. Confused voters, traffic jams, overcrowded polling places, election officials tossing the rules, and -let’s just say it was not democracy at its finest. My evening started at Precinct 157 in the Acres Home area, an overwhelmingly African American part of north Houston. At 6:50pm traffic around the polling place was at a virtual standstill, with cars snaked around the block in pursuit of a parking space. I finally found a spot in a soggy field not too far away.
By 7:15pm the tiny Highland Park Recreation Center was packed with voters. The rec center was at least a third the size required for the number of people attending the convention. Long queues formed almost immediately. Many people, including the elderly, simply left rather than stand in the chilly evening. “It’s like they say - Don’t Mess With Texas,” said an exasperated Charles Nelms while waiting in line. “But it looks like Texas is going to be a mess tonight.”
Conspicuous in the crowd was Bob Meals, an attorney from Seattle working for the Obama campaign with a sign on his chest that read “Obama Voter Protection.” He carried with him a marked-up 32-page manual on the precinct conventions issued by the Obama campaign. His job was to make sure the rules were followed, he said.
Volunteer poll workers shouted contradictory instructions to the waiting voters. Many were confused about whether their vote would count if they left after signing-in. It would, but one man didn’t help things by yelling to the crowd about Hillary “propaganda.”
The actual sign-in process went quickly once people were inside, but tallying the returns proved messy. Caucus organizers huddled around a table quickly realized that many people hadn’t filled in all their identifying information. Some hadn’t registered a presidential preference. Someone suggested calling out the names of those with missing information. That idea was shot down. No one could find a calculator to add the totals. The attorney for the Obama campaign was handling the sheets (at least until an official noticed it). Some people were still trying to sign-in despite the fact that the sign-in had been closed. I never got a clear answer on how voters without a stamped registration card or receipt from the primary were verified to make sure they were in fact eligible to vote in the convention.
The election judge finally hustled the remaining caucus-goers outside and into the bleachers of a nearby softball field. He said he would be going through some of the outstanding problems with everybody, but that never happened as far as I could tell. “This is like a high school fire drill,” remarked a man. A precinct chair was elected and the returns announced - of 291 votes, Obama received 271 and Clinton got 20. Of 31 delegates at stake, Obama got 29 and Clinton two. “That’s all?,” called out a man in the bleachers. “Aw, come on now.” It did seem to me that more than 291 people had attended the convention but who really knows.
The new precinct chair took nominations for delegates but then hand-picked those he thought should go on. “You gotta do this the democratic way,” he said. “You gotta have some youth. That’s what Barack Obama is all about - the youth. Let me do my job.” Not to be a stickler, but the rules require that a vote be taken on each nominee.
Finally, by 9:45 p.m, the voters had all left and the poll workers sat around trying to figure out how to get the required paperwork to the state party. No one could find the sheet with the preference totals. Someone had taken it home with him. There was also the matter of voter certificate numbers missing from the sign-in sheets. The election judge decided to have a meeting the next day to finish the verification. It was 10 p.m. and he still needed to take the primary returns from earlier in the day to the tabulation office downtown.
As I was driving back to the motel, I heard a live radio report that chaos had also broken out at another north Houston polling location. I rushed over to find the aftermath of quite a scene. Two precincts had tried to cram into a small courthouse annex. A constable said that earlier in the evening organizers had been blowing on whistles in an attempt to corral the crowd. KHOU estimated that 3,000 people had shown up. It was hard to sort out whether the rules were actually followed. One of the temporary chairs claimed that when she showed up to run the caucus, names were already on the sign-in sheet. Another man immediately shushed her, saying “you’re going to negate the whole process.” Other observers said the caucus began before the primary had concluded.
Apparently voters were turned away who did not have a stamped registration card or a receipt from the primary. However the party rules state that voters may present ID and then are to be checked against the poll lists to confirm they are eligible to vote. The sign-in sheets used at this location also contained a space for a “voter certificate number.” However the Secretary of State phased out the six-digit certificated number in January 2007. Anyone registering after that date is issued a ten-digit voter identification number. A few weeks ago, I was told by the state party that they would correct the forms. Apparently not.
When elections are not smooth and fair voters lose confidence in the system. The majority of voters last night seemed excited that they had a say in picking a presidential nominee, but frustration with the process was nearly universal.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:11 am
[…] on Precinct Conventions The Texas Observer blog has a couple of good posts, with pictures. They mistakenly called Acres Home “Acreage Home” but […]