Get ready, Texas

Throughout the past six months or so I have been feeling a deep passion towards politics, as I'm sure much of the country has as well. Living in Texas we don't usually hear the words "swing state" or "important" in reference to our nationwide political sway. We are a red state. We've always been a red state, and for the most part will always be a red state -- but I see a little purple creeping in.

The primaries -- an oft-forgotten and overlooked pre-election election that only those truly committed politicos actually exercise their voting rights for. I personally had never voted in a primary until this year, and I imagine that 80-90% of Texans are in my same position. And on top of that I don't think I had even heard the word caucus since my U.S. Government class my senior year in high school - and even then it meant nothing to me.

As Texans we do most things differently and I would propose BETTER. Now don't start blaming all Texans for George W. or big oil or mexicans - there are too many of us to make a generalization. We're an incredibly diverse populous - but we all have one thing in common - WE LOVE TEXAS.

However, one thing we do NOT do a good job of is the primary. I'm pretty positive that we haven't changed our rules and guidelines on voting since the Alamo. It's an incredible confusing and intricate process that basically takes someone of great patience and intelligence to explain, let along understand.

Let's break it down real quick.... and by quick i mean welcome to confusion....

The Texas Democratic Party sends 228 total delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Of those delegates, 193 are pledged and 35 are unpledged (superdelegates). The Party uses a combination of two processes to select delegates and determine how they will be allocated to each presidential candidate. The Party uses the results of the primary process to determine how 126 of its 193 pledged delegates will be allocated to each candidate. The Party uses the caucus process to select its delegates and also to determine how many of the remaining 67 pledged delegates will be allocated to each candidate. Many states require that candidates receive at least 15% of the total votes to receive delegates. The Texas Democratic Party only applies this requirement to the primary process and the final step of the caucus process since those are the only two occasions in which the Party allocates delegates to candidates.

Recap: Welcome to the "Texas 2-Step" - First you vote in the primary and then you caucus. However, no one has any idea what a caucus means let alone why you would need to do it. Let's continue...

The Texas Presidential Primary is an open primary - which permits participants to vote for candidates in any one party, regardless of voters' party affiliations.

Recap: A common misconception is that in Texas you affiliate yourself with a specific party when you register to vote. False. You become affiliated with a party when you vote in a primary. You are then affiliated with this party for 2 years - meaning that you must vote within that party during subsequent primaries in that 2 year period. However, you can still vote outside your party during a general election - such as the election in November.

The Primary (for 2008) takes place on March 4th. Polling places are open from 7am - 7pm. Once the last person in line at 7pm has voted in the primary, the caucus (or precinct convention) begins - normally around 7:15pm. Participation is open to anyone who voted in the primary. You sign in and provide proof that you in fact voted in the primary by signing an affidavit. Then you vote for the candidate of your choice.

Recap: You're basically voting twice. This may seem like a huge inconvenience and you may miss the beginning of American Idol, but this is the way our system works. Now if that's not strange enough, get ready for the confusion!!

At each caucus (there are 8,247 total in Texas), participants choose precinct delegates that will go to the county and state district conventions. The Party allocates one precinct delegate to each precinct for every 15 votes that were case in the previous election - in this case it's the 2006 gubernatorial election starring Chris Bell (he didn't win).

Recap: During the caucus you are picking some people to attend another election-type thing at the end of the month. However, you're not picking people based on this year's election - you're picking people based on an election that happened 2 YEARS AGO - where there probably wasn't a very high voter turnout. So, if you're living in a small town in Texas and you've gotten every single person to come out and vote because you feel so passionate about it - you're only going to be able to have as much say in the county and state conventions as your peers had initiative to come out and vote in the last election - which probably wasn't very much.


OK - well that was my attempt at making our crazy election process a little easier to understand. I'm looking forward to tonights results after I caucus! Go Obama!