Get Thee to a Polling Place!!!
Among the immutable constants of the universe, it would seem, are death, taxes, and the perpetual bizarreness of Texas politics. And the Democratic primary here is no exception. The ins-and-outs of it have been broken down quite well elsewhere, but hey, I’m blogging from Austin, right where the Clinton/Obama tempest has recently descended, so I figured I’d kick in as well.
It works like so: Texas has 228 delegates total to send to the DNC convention. Of those, 35 are super delegates, so we can safely ignore them because, well, there’s nothing much we can do about them. (Word on the street is that concerns over the possible anti-democratic nature of the super delegates may be overblown.) So what about the other 193?
Of that 193, 126 will be chosen by the primaries. That’s the regular vote that occurs during the day of Tuesday, March 4. (Figure out if you’re registered to vote here, register to vote here, and find out where you go to vote – I’d use the ID# on your voter registration card, rather than your driver’s license – here. These things can change, and right now they’re displaying early voting areas anyway, so be sure to check again the day of.)
This is where it gets interesting. The remaining 67 delegates are chosen by a caucus system. What happens is that 15 minutes after the voting polls close, a caucus is held in every precinct in the state, which anyone who voted during the day can attend. These caucuses will allocate 42 at-Large delegates and 25 super delegates (these super delegates, apparently, we can affect). The 42 at-Large delegates will go to the County Convention, where they’ll pick delegates for the State Convention, where they’ll pick delegates for the National Convention, at which point the presidential candidate will (probably) be chosen.
Long story short, if you care about those other 67 delegates, find out when voting ends at your polling place, then show back up there 15 minutes afterwards to attend the caucus. Also, both the primaries and the caucuses award delegates to the presidential candidates proportionally, so it isn’t winner-take-all.
Got all that? Okay, good.
In other news, a little less than three hours remain before you can no longer toss your name in amongst the other 20,000 or so other people who have signed up for those debate tickets. The 100 chosen will be announced Tuesday morning. Lots of fingernails will apparently continue to get a little bit shorter.
Leave a Reply