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 :)
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