Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Texas Democrats Quitting in the Face of Difficulty?

In this article on foxnews.com, it was reported that Texas state democrats have given up their efforts to get a proper tally of the caucus results following last week's primary election, won by a small 51%-to-47% margin by Hillary Clinton.

The problems included the following:

  • Just over 40% of the precinct caucus results were actually reported to the state by the volunteers who are supposed to account for the tally.
  • Barack Obama led the caucus count, incomplete though it was, 56% to 44%. This is inconsistent with the primary results, which seems to me to be a potential source of political strife.
  • The local issue here seems to be a matter of (1) getting a proper caucus vote count, (2) recording this count accurately, and (3) submitting it on the proper paperwork to the folks up the ladder. This is not difficult, even for Democrats. So how on earth can the problems be so widespread, in so many counties? Should we ever trust Democrats again with voting apparatus of any kind? [Read the article for several examples.]
  • Does anybody remember Democrat complaints about the 2000 Florida presidential results?
Houston’s 857 precinct results are still coming in, said Harris County party chairman Gerald Birnberg, but when precinct convention chairmen ran out of official sign-in sheets last Tuesday night, they tore the “Democrats Vote Here” signs off the wall and scrawled the preferences of caucus-goers in long hand, slowing down the count this week.
  • And just so you don't think I'm making this one up, I'll quote from the article again:
In Hidalgo County, a border stronghold for Clinton, the count has been stymied by the disappearance of county Democratic chairman Juan Maldonado, who changed his cell phone number after losing re-election and hasn’t shown up at his business, a bail-bonds office that also offers state teacher certification.
How many problems do you see in that sentence?

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