| And away we go...on to the county/senate district conventions, whether we like it or not...
Here in Bastrop County, things went relatively well on March 4. The polls were well-staffed, and nearly all of the precinct conventions were conducted fairly and properly. I suppose we'll all know more as March 29 approaches and we see how many credentials challenges are lodged, but I believe we had a solid crop of trained caucus-goers and chairs and that should minimize problems for us as the process goes forward.
Nearly all of the problems I've seen cited, both here on BOR and elsewhere, seem directly tied to lack of preparation and leadership at the county and precinct level. With all the training sessions by county parties, SDEC folk, DFT and the like, I feel like I had adequate preparation for the process and a good background in the rules, but I understand this was not the case for a lot of those who wound up chairing PCs around the state. (I'm fortunate to live in a county that still has a relatively strong and active local party.)
Add to that the flurry of paranoid emails from the Clinton campaign to their caucus-goers (one Clinton supporter at my PC basically recited the most proliferated one line for line as we proceeded by the book), and some probably erroneous/rash instructions from Obama organizers to their ground troops about sign-in rules and order of business, etc., and there was bound to be trouble as the turnout went off the charts. By and large I think we had a lot of misunderstandings that were magnified by the contentiousness of this nomination process.
So as the TDP attempts to take advantage of this golden opportunity while simultaneously trying to wriggle out of a huge mess and sort out all the problems and find missing results, I'm not sure I should trouble them for some clarification as to how we proceed to allocate delegates from county to state. But I'm on the Rules Committee, so I hereby seek input from the BOR braintrust and peanut gallery....
As I read the rules here:
(d) At the County or Senatorial District Conventions, precincts shall elect their Delegates in accordance with Party Rules, and At-Large Delegates shall be selected by the Convention according to the following procedure:
(1) Either a written poll of Delegates or a roll call poll of the Convention shall be conducted to determine political preferences. The method to be used shall be determined by the County or Senatorial District Committee in advance of the Convention or, if it fails to act, by the Permanent Convention Chair. The written poll of Delegates may be either by ballot or by sign-in sheet on forms prescribed by the County or Senatorial District Committee. These forms shall require the signature of each Delegate, attesting to the Delegate's political preference (in non-presidential years) or presidential preference or uncommitted status (in presidential years). No Delegate may sign more than once. Final establishment of the poll, either by roll call or in writing, shall be the first order of business immediately following the election of Permanent Convention Officers and before the Convention conducts any other business.
(2) Upon completing the poll, results shall be tabulated by a committee appointed by the Permanent Convention Chair and composed of at least one person for each known political or presidential preference. The Chair then shall announce the tabulation results to the convention by number and percentages of votes received by each political or presidential preference. The tabulation then shall be written into the permanent records of the Convention and shall be reported as part of the minutes. The poll records, including the ballots, sign-in sheets, or roll call poll, shall be retained by the County or Senatorial District Chair as part of the official files of the Convention for at least six months. Such records shall be open to public inspection at reasonable hours upon request.
(3) Any written forms used in conducting such poll, or the announced method of polling, if by roll call poll, shall include all known political preferences (in non-presidential years) or presidential preferences and uncommitted status (in presidential years) of Delegates, but shall not limit the right of any Delegate or group of Delegates to indicate their preference in any manner which they choose.
(4) Poll results shall be used by the Nominations Committee and by the Convention as a whole as the basis for nominating and for electing At-Large Delegates so as to ensure the fairest possible representation of the Convention participants as a whole within the total delegation, without disturbing the Precinct Caucus election results. The threshold will be the lowest allowed by the National Committee (which at present is 15%).
It seems to confirm that regardless of who shows up at the county convention, the allocation of the county's delegates to state are basically set by the precinct caucus results - i.e., we do not 're-caucus' at the county convention - but that any at-large delegates can be allocated using the results of the county convention sign-in rolls
(subject to credentials challenges, I assume). In short, the at-large delegates are up for grabs to whichever candidate's supporters have the highest convention attendance - but it also sounds like this is entirely up to the county Nominations Committee.
Obviously I've been studying and ciphering, but I'm not a Rules Geek yet.
Anybody want to weigh in?
(paging Dr. Maxey....paging Dr. Maxey...) |
