I am very confused about what is going on in Texas

[acrosstheuniverse]

Can people explain to me what is happening there right now? Why are they doing the primary thing over again? And who is really winning? :shrug:

[Yael]

1. Texas is a mulit-step primary

On top of primary elections, they also have a caucus (allowing people who voted in the primary to vote again).

This allocates x delegates to the state from the primary and x delegates from the caucus.

Tonight, the caucus results were completed via conventions.

Hillary won the primary something like 65-61 and that splits the 126 primary delegates with a +4 Hillary end count.

Tonight is not final, but the 67 caucus delegates are looking to split 60-40 Obama, giving him a 9 delegate lead (or 5 lead for the state).

Hope this helps!

[emilyg]

8. Tonight is not final?

What else?

[Asgaya Dihi]

9. Tonight is county

next it goes to State.

[phrigndumass]

10. They're still tallying the results in Texas tonight ...

The senate district caucuses took place today. It might be sometime tomorrow morning before all the results are in.

:hi:

[seabeyond]

2. i cannot even get close to get exactly correct. i am sittin in it and dont get it

but what i am getting. they vote primary day and large percent goes to delegates then at night primary day they have a caucus. at these caucus they get delegate. the delegates then i gues like declare their votes in this, then they will go to austing and one more time, to stream line to denver. or something like....

[izzybeans]

3. Some people are sleeping, some people are partying, some people are working

I think the Obama people are partying while Caucus organizers work to finish counting their victory. Some people must be sleeping.

[Asgaya Dihi]

4. This might help a little

The following article gives a quick peek into the system...

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=bd26ba8d-d2b4-479f-a949-142a9e5771ff

In short Texas used to be a one party State, dem, and only used the caucus but in the mid 70s one side of the party looked too organized so the other pushed through the hybrid system we now have as a compromise to protect their power. It's been that way ever since. Dems caucus in Texas but repubs don't.

The night of the election anyone who voted dem is welcome to show up to caucus, but only if you voted dem. Most years it doesn't make much news but this time it did, nothing at all new about it though and both sides had the same chances to learn the rules and campaign, it was up to them to run the better one. What's happening tonight is the delegates assigned from those local results reporting to the next step up in the process, there they'll pick new delegates to carry it to the next step.

[Johnny__Motown]

5. People confuse the popular vote portion with the word "primary"

it is simply one step in the process

[AldebTX]

6. Like someone above said...

We have a multi-step caucus in addition to the primary. The primary elects 2/3 of the total delegates and is based on the popular vote. The caucuses elect 1/3 of the total state delegates (in this case 67 of them)

On primary night we caucused and elected precinct delegates to the County Conventions which occur(ed) March 29 and 30th. ( I am an Obama delegate at my county convention on March 30th) Our precinct had 22 delegates to send to the county and 16 were elected for Obama, 5 for Hillary and 1 was undecided.

At the county conventions on the 29th and 30th we elect delegates to go to the state convention which occurs on June 5 and 6th in Austin. Thats where the final caucus delegates (67 of em) are elected to join the primary and super delegates going to Denver. So to be completely honest the true Texas total will not be known until that time. The current count shows Obama actually winning the state by 4-5 delegates if nothing changes.

The interesting thing is if an elected delegate does not show up at the county conventions, an alternate from the other side can sort of jump their seat. Our precinct delegates met thursday to insure we would have everyone present on sunday and alternates to fill in for anyone who might not show up and to take any seats of delegates from the other side that are not seated by the county caucus time.

The other interesting item is I live in a primarily republican county and precinct. The largest number of caucus voters that have ever shown up for a precinct convention in the past was 20 people. This year there was 1,500. The county convention this year is the largest they have ever had and they had to change venue because they are expecting 4,000 to show up for the election of delegates to the state. They also released vote totals for the primary and for the first time our majority republican county had more Democratic voters then republican.

[rasputin1952]

7. When I went to our Caucus here in NE, they were expecting

30-40 people, 300+ showed up, and that was just our little precinct...the statewide count shot up dramatically, and I personally handed out 24 new Voter Reg cards for new D's...all of them young. In fact, the brightest part of the whole couple of ours was seeing all of the young coming forward...usually only us geezers deal with this stuff...:D

[MagickMuffin]

11. Texas actually has 3 Conventions, they are not really considered caucuses

The first convention is the day of the primary, that decides on delegates by electing them to the SD or county convention.

The second convention is a county or Senate District convention which elects delegates that were elected from the primary conventions, who gets to go to State.

The third convention is the State convention where the delegates who were elected at SD or county conventions get to attend as delegates.

At ALL three conventions the VOTERS can submit resolutions that get voted on at ALL three stages of the conventions. We don't really have caucuses per se, but that is how most people refer to them.

Sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I'm soooo tired after attending the SD convention earlier. It's been a long day and night, I was there for over 12 hours. But I hope I made a little sense.

[donheld]

12. This is why I miss Molly Ivins

She'd have explained this all to us, and gave us many of good laughs to go with it.