I am at my precinct convention (Precinct 003). Maybe 100 people here, with a slight majority for Obama by my reckoning. Very few Republicans. Will call things to order shortly and will post updates as time permits.
UPDATE: Successfully transitioned chair duties to someone else. Everything was done in a spirit of cooperation, and everything went smoothly. I wound up helping count votes. Obama won, and will get 15 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 11 for the SDEC06 convention. I was out of there by 8:30 and am now at Jessica Farrar's HQ, where she led with 75% in early voting. More to come.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on March 04, 2008 to Election 2008Precinct 360's convention was rather crazy, but mainly because there were two other precincts voting there as well. Probably about 150-200 people just for us, another 150-200 for the other two combined. They had to shepherd us out of the building because we reached the fire marshal's building capacity. When all was said and done, many left after the signing in, leaving about 50 people; just barely enough to fill all of the delegate and alternate spots (25 delegates in all - 15 for Obama and 10 for Clinton, along with the 25 alternates). We got out of there about 20 minutes ago and probably didn't go through all of the steps; we're going to SD07, so not nearly as important as 06. Glad I wasn't running the show, though.
Posted by: souperman on March 4, 2008 9:41 PMtotal chaos over 150 showed up whereas before 5 was considered a good turnout not enough supplies not enough room
Posted by: Charles Hixon on March 4, 2008 9:44 PMJust got back from my precinct convention at about 9:40. Huge turnout made worse by the fact they had two precincts combined in one location. There was about 130 in my precinct and well over 200 at the other. I took an hour to just get people signed in. 403 went 11-9 for Clinton 281 went 19-14 I think.
Posted by: Antinome on March 4, 2008 9:46 PMWe had 200 at our precinct convention, and this is a very conservative area. We're talking Kenny Marchant conservative. :)
I attended the precinct 291 convention. Everything went relatively smoothly, given that we had several old hands at the caucusing process. Obama won the delegates 8-5 for the SDEC 13 convention.
Posted by: Kenneth Fair on March 4, 2008 10:57 PMDid you verify that the participants had voted in the Democratic primary before counting them towards the caucus totals? They didn't do that in my precinct even though the Texas Democratic Party Rules and the memos sent to precinct chairs before the election said they are supposed to verify eligibility before the caucus is held.
Posted by: Kevin C on March 5, 2008 12:04 AMWe had some good fun at 501 until the end. Obama beat out Clinton for 10 of 17 delegates, but an overzealous Clinton-supporting chair pretended to be an Obama supporter and then refused to allow the secretary (me) access to the paperwork once th votes were tallied and delegates were selected. A lot of stuff ensued, and HPD had to come along to get it sorted out and get me access to the documents.
Crazy stuff.
Posted by: Noel on March 5, 2008 1:09 AM15-11 feels like a closer split that I would have expected ... is your precinct unusually pro-Clinton for an urban precinct?
Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot on March 5, 2008 3:51 AM