I just compiled this document to use while canvassing our precinct. Please cut and paste and send to Texans. Most do not know about the caucus (precinct convention). It's a complicated system and I tried to keep the language simple.
ATTENTION DEMOCRATS: To affect which delegates in Texas will represent your candidate of choice, you must vote in the primary AND attend a caucus in your precinct on March 4 at 7:15 p.m.
Here’s how it works.
The population of a given state affects the number of delegates. Texas has 228 delegates to send to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colo., this August.
You may have heard about pledged delegates and superdelegates. A pledged delegate is a person sent to conventions based on how people in Texas vote and caucus. A superdelegate is an elected official or political party leader who can choose to support any candidate.
Texas has 193 pledged delegates and 35 superdelegates.
Texas Has a Primary/Caucus Hybrid System
Of the 193 pledged delegates in Texas, 126 delegates will represent the votes of each candidate in 31 State Senate districts across Texas. (If you live in precinct No. 1109, you are also in State Senate District No. 8.)
The other 67 delegates will be chosen at a caucus. You may have seen live caucuses broadcast on television during other state elections. States such as Nevada, Colorado and Iowa vote only at a caucus.
In Texas, we do both: we vote privately by marking a ballot and we also attend a caucus at our polling place the evening of the primary election. This year, the caucus will begin on March 4 at 7:15 p.m.
You can mark a ballot at an early voting location from Feb. 19-29 (this Web site has a list of local early voting locations: www.dalcoelections.org/march42008/EVLocations.htm). If you do not have a chance to vote early, you can mark a ballot at your polling place on Tuesday, March 4. Your ballot vote will decide how many of the 126 delegates are sent to the convention for one candidate or another.
But that’s only about 75% of the delegates; so essentially, you’ve only sent 75% of a vote.
The 67 caucus-chosen delegates are assigned based on who shows up for the local caucus that night. If you don’t show up, you’re not giving 100% of your vote to the candidate of your choice.
How Do I Caucus?
Caucuses are meetings held at your polling place. Any voter who voted during early voting or who voted earlier in the day on March 4 is eligible to attend. Do not show up at the same place you voted early; go to your polling place.
In Texas, a caucus is called a precinct convention.
If you arrive later than 7:15 p.m., you can still participate, but you can’t change what has already happened in the convention.
The first thing the precinct chair will ask everyone to do is to sign in and indicate the presidential candidate he or she supports. You can also indicate that you are undecided. This is not a secret ballot.
The precinct chair might separate people on one side of the room or the other based on which candidate they support. They might ask people from all sides to give a brief speech. Then the undecided voters are asked if they’d like to change their status from undecided to a candidate.
The precinct chair announces how many people have attended the convention. He or she will also announce how many delegates your State Senatorial district has (State Senate District No. 8 has four delegates) and how many delegates each candidate’s supporters are entitled to elect.
Why Does It Matter?
The precinct convention gives the advantage to whichever campaign has the best grassroots effort to get their voters to attend the precinct convention.
Can You Give Me a Hypothetical Example?
Let’s say 100 people attend a precinct convention. No one is undecided; 80 of those attending the precinct convention support candidate A and 20 support candidate B. Let's assume your precinct gets to select five delegates to go to the County Convention. Four of those delegates would be "pledged" to candidate A and one would be "pledged" to candidate B. All five people go to the County Convention. At the County and State Conventions, the process is repeated. (Many thanks to the Burnt Orange Report for this information, which goes into much more detail: www.burntorangereport.com.
A Barack Obama supporter and precinct chair compiled this information to give all democrats the information they need to participate fully as voters in Texas. For more information about voting, attending your precinct convention, or the Obama campaign, you can contact the local Obama grassroots organization at www.obamadallas.com. The national campaign’s Dallas office is located at 1409 S. Lamar St., Suite 011, Dallas, TX 75215.
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