Caucus chaos, part 3

We reported today how hundreds of North Texans tried to caucus Tuesday night but failed.

This is one tale we received too late to include in the story. It's from Monty Jordan of Northwest Fort Worth. He attended a delegate training session and his wife attended TWO of them before attending their precinct conventions:

We are in precinct #4551, which is located in North West Fort Worth. It was a mad house as I’m sure everyone else’s was in Texas, but from what I’ve heard it was one of the more organized.

We ran out of the 5 signup sheets within 20 minutes after we started. They did not have a copy machine, so someone went out and made copies. 3 hours and 25 sheets later and we were finally done voting.

Then came the delegate process, which actually went fairly smoothly. We were lucky that both sides had EXACTLY enough delegates and alternates.

Just when we thought we were done. No one knew what to do with the paperwork. One would assume that the precinct organizers would know what to do with this information. Nope. My wife called the democratic headquarters in Austin only to be hung up on when she asked for help. My wife immediately called back and asked for help again. The person on the phone did not know what to do either, so my wife asked to speak to a supervisor and overheard the supervisor telling the staff member to “just hang up on her”. The phone went dead again.

She furiously called back again and the phone was answered by the supervisor that she had just overheard. After my wife finished yelling at the supervisor for telling the staff member to hang up on her, the supervisor said that “we are being overwhelmed with phone calls and are no longer answering the phone”. The phone went dead again and no one would pick up after that. For lack of a better option, we ended up dropping everything off at the post office to be mailed. 

I’ve heard of other problems from different precincts such as missing voter pages and incomplete delegate information (like no contact info or voter ID #). With all the problems everyone in Texas had with this delegate process, I’m not sure if they can rely on these delegate votes at all.

(Caucus Chaos Parts 1 & 2)

-Aman Batheja

Comments

[gustavo]

did you say mad house?? my precient(4017) didn't even have 1 single bilingual person for this office. they were telling people to just get in line. when this lady tried to ask a question. the office helper turned to her co worker and rolled her eyes as to say "do u really think i understand you? or are u kiddind me." it also didn't help that they were about 90 years old. so it just slowed the whole process even more. so i guess everyone had thier own set of problems, but you have to use what they issue. keep voting people, one day this country will be heard. even if we aren't understood, haha.

[Lee Dunkelberg]

In the packet for Tarrant County Precinct 3289, there SHOULD be two resolutions.
1. Calls for an end to the precinct conventions and for a true primary
2. condemns the Tarrant County Democratic Party Executive Committee for poor planning leading to disenfranchisement of voters, particularly minorities, low-income and elderly.

[Rodriguez]

I voted at Arlington Heights High School and when I first arrived there at 6:53AM nothing was setup yet to vote and the I was harrassed by two black ladies running/setting up the polling/voting booths they had noting ready and seemed very confused and disorganized they still had the metal polls for the voting machines all over the floor and papers everywhere tables weren't even setup yet or anything! as I walked in the two ladies told me to leave that it wasn't 7:00am yet and to come back in 7 minutes. I responded it's cold out there I'll just sit in one of the four chairs they managed to have there. I got on my cell phone to call my Father who only speaks spanish & as soon as they heard me speak spanish they chased me out of there and told that no cell phones were allowed in there however they seemed to be using their cell phone. One of the ladies chased me out. At first I thought I was trapped because I didn't know if the doors of the room we were in were locked being that it was a school and sometimes can only use certain doors. As I was attempting to open one of the doors one of the ladies working the poll was almost on my back I really thought that she was going to hit me! She kept yelling no cell phones, no cell phones go outside so as I exited out there was another lady in the faculty parking lot with Hillary button's all over her coat!!! and was telling me vote for Hillary, vote for Hillary come back tonight again and vote for Hillary! While in the parking lot I was already a bit shaken from the two poll ladies so I told this one guy walking in that everything in there was so disorganized and nothing was ready and that the two ladies were very rude and chased me out. As I walked back in with him into the polling room things were still the same and very chaotic by then about 10 people were in line and confusing just than when I figured out that all this time I had been in the wrong room! As I looked out the door I saw a sign that said "Republican Party" vote here! so I quick left that room and went to the other room which was much more organized and was greeted very friendly. I was there no more than 5 minutes voted and was on my way to work! I was praying thank goodness for not having to go back to that other room and vote for that cacus!!!! I'd be afriad of that!!!!