Reporting live from caucus in Houston, TX

My friend Josh and his wife went to caucus in Houston, TX. Here are his reports as they come in. He is using instant messenger from his phone.

update: audio file from when the wrong numbers were announced

In chronological order. Newest updates are at the bottom. Last updated 9:31 pm, eastern

– 9:10 pm –

• it’s pretty nuts – lost sign in sheets, ad hoc procedural decisions, etd.
• in the beginning, everyone was told they could sign in (indicating the candidate) and then leave
• if they didn’t want to be a delegate
• [my wife] did, so we stayed
• then, when the initial count of hillary voters for one of the precincts was off by an obvious order of magnitude… [update: see audio file above]
• now we’re doing resolutions
• 1 – impeach bush/cheney
• (didn’t see that coming)
• anyway – a bunch of signup sheets were missing
• and the chair suggested that we allocate the delegates based on who was still here (!)
• (a bunch of folks had left – I would have if not for [my wife])
• but then someone came out of the back with a bunch of sheets
• and they’re still counting
• there was zero control over the sheets
• so I don’t think we can be too confident
• - next resolution has to do with inaccurate vote counts in the past – hehe

– 9:20 –

• rats – hillary took both precincts
• but by a narrow margin
• the total vote counts sounded sane
• hundred twenty something total for one precint, hundred two for the other – but i’m going to count
• about 100 still in the room – makes sense to think about that many left
• back into 4 groups – one O & one H for each precinct
• now voting on delegates, after hearing resolutions
• there’s usually no competition for delegates.
• right now a green party convert is stumping to become an obama delegate
• our precinct gets 5 delegates for obama, and 12 people signed up for it ([my wife] among them)
• we also get 5 alternates (makes sense), and so the delegates are expressing which they want to be
• looks like we pared down to 10 and agreed to split off the alternates
• no vote needed, and [my wife]‘s a delegate – we’re taking off (baby’s cranky)

Josh had this to say after he got home:

• John: well… from what you told me it seems like some pile of sheets came from nowhere
• John: magically
• yeah — someone had stashed them in the back
• John: or at least– they could have been pre-processed by some party before they made their reappearance
• there were enough signers present, and the sheets were in plain sight…
• that it would have been foolish to try large fraud, I imagine
• but the control really wasn’t there — one or more sheets could have been lost
• all the addresses and voter reg (or drivers license) numbers will be verified
• so from that perspective, it’s probably better than those damn machines we used for the primary