New Texas election process has Democrats expecting a delay in Super Tuesday delegate totals

[TexasTowelie]

By Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune


As their counterparts in Iowa reel from a disastrously slow election returns process, Texas Democrats say they're worried that a change in the way Texas reports election results will delay the final tally of delegates won by presidential hopefuls in the upcoming March 3 primary past election night.

Officials with the Texas Democratic Party said they were recently told by the Texas Secretary of State’s office that it will not be able to provide on election night the numbers needed to allocate a majority of the 228 delegates up for grabs in the state on Super Tuesday. In a Jan. 23 meeting, the Democrats said, top state election officials cited limitations to their revamped reporting system, which is used to compile returns from the state's 254 counties.

"They basically said that's not built out yet," said Glen Maxey, the special projects director for the Texas Democratic Party who attended the meeting with state officials.

At issue are 149 delegates that will be won by Democratic presidential candidates through a complex formula that divvies up those delegates based on the distribution of votes in each of Texas' 31 state Senate districts. Maxey said he and other officials were told the state initially will collect election returns at the county level but not at the senatorial district or precinct level, which are needed to calculate how many delegates each candidate picks up. Party officials were told those more detailed numbers would be made available "the next day or so," Maxey said.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/02/05/texas-democrats-expect-delay-presidential-delegate-totals-super-tuesda/