Democratic Party Refuses Clinton Request
March 17th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
The Texas Democratic Party this afternoon flatly rejected the Hillary Clinton campaign’s request to delay the county conventions. The Clinton camp claims that volunteers for Barack Obama committed numerous acts of fraud on election night. The campaign had requested a delay to verify that the roughly one million caucus goers on March 4 were eligible to participate.
But the party is having none of it. In a forceful letter released this afternoon, party Chairman Boyd Richie wrote: “Texas Democratic Party will not do as suggested by one campaign and circumvent Party rules to set up an unnecessary, ad hoc ‘verification’ process that could effectively disqualify delegates selected at their precinct conventions after the fact. The Party has never stated any intention to set up a verification process of this nature because Party rules already provide for ‘verification’ through our credentials process. Candidates who wish to disqualify delegates must pursue formal challenges based on evidence filed appropriately in accordance with our party’s rules.”
While conceding the caucuses were not perfect, Richie brushes aside allegations of fraud. “These problems are not unique to Texas. Similar problems, in proportionately similar numbers, occurred in pure caucus states like Iowa and Nevada. The overwhelming majority of problems reported in Texas do not affect the legitimacy of delegate allocation.”
He then states that the county and state conventions will go on as scheduled.
So is this heading to court? That would seem to be the logical next play for the Clinton campaign. Asked for comment, Clinton campaign spokesperson Adrienne Elrod said, “Our only concern is that the caucus outcome accurately reflect the voices of those who were eligible to participate.”
March 26th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
[…] It was just last week that the Clinton campaign asked party officials to postpone the county conventions — the second in the three-tiered caucus process that will award 67 delegates — due to alleged fraud and confusion. Party Chair Boyd Richie said no. […]