Texas Primary and Caucus: An Explanation for the Curious

One item I’ve been asked to explain is the Texas Primary and Caucus system. I will take on this challenge, although I don’t think it is as confusing as it sounds.

In Texas, 126 of the delegates (roughly 2/3) are apportioned to the candidates by a primary which allows early voting at any voting location in your county ending on February 29. Regular voting is on March 4. The other third of the elected delegates (67) are apportioned based on a precinct convention (or Caucus) that takes place on March 4 at 7:15 or after the last voter has voted, whichever comes later (the polls close at 7:00, but this rule allows those who get there by 7:00 the right to get their vote in). Additionally, like other states, there are 35 superdelegates who are: all members of the United State House from Texas, members of the Democratic National Committee from Texas, the Former U.S. Speaker of the House, and the Former Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

There is a 3 level convention system, but the only thing that really matters to voters are the precinct conventions. There is a precinct chair who calls to order the convention at 7:15. If the chair is not there at 7:15, anyone who is participating (which means you also voted that day), can start the meeting. This is relevant as the person running this convention might use their own influence to push voters in one direction and could very well happen in more rural (and likely unorganized border communities) spots.

When you arrive (and it is recommended that you arrive by 7:00, but definitely before 7:15), you sign in and indicate who you support. If there were more than two candidates, it would be a lot more complicated. Since there are only two, there won’t be any, or much, switching votes due to yours or any other candidates not having enough votes to count in the Caucus. In other words, the process shouldn’t take too long.

Now I could go into more details on the process, but I’m going to comment on another subtle quirk in the apportionment of delegates. Texas splits up delegates in each district based on how well voters turned out in the previous election. Hillary mentioned as recently as February 18th when speaking about the Texas delegate system, “I’ve got people trying to understand it as we speak. Grown men are crying as we speak. I had no idea it was so bizarre.” This sounds like her whining about the Caucus format and how they hurt working people. Question: does whining about the format of the elections and getting people to figure it out two weeks before it takes place really sound like she’s “ready to lead on day one”? I submit that she should have been focusing a little more attention on the elections, but spent too much time thinking about the inauguration. I’ve been telling people for months that it was all going to come down to Texas and Ohio, does Hillary live in the same bubble that George W. does…void of anyone who can tell her the truth or at the very least, know how to operate an Excel spreadsheet to calculate delegate projections?

Do we want another whiner in the White House? “It’s hard work!”

Furthermore, the delegate apportionment makes perfect sense to me. If a district votes heavily Democrat in one election, then it’s likely they will in the subsequent election, and should be the district who is deciding who should be the candidate for the national election. Otherwise, Huckabee supporters come out to vote for the candidate that will be easier to beat in November. This assumes of course that homeschooling their child doesn’t get in the way of voting.

Huckabee convinces kids he’s cool, after convincing them that dinosaurs obviously didn’t exist since the earth is only 30,000 years old. Look it up in the Book put together by “scientists” in the Middle East and Italy, oh , around 1700 years ago.

One final note about delegate apportionment for my loyal Austin readership. The average district in Texas is worth 4 delegates (15 of the 31 districts). Nine are worth 3, one is worth 2 delegates. Due to heavy turnout in other areas, 2 districts are worth 5 delegates, a few are worth 6, and one is worth 7. District 14, which is most of Travis County (Austin), is the only district worth 8 delegates due to it being the only blue county in the state other than some less populated border counties.