Video: Crowded caucus at Carver
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Unexpected caucus crowds forcing change in plans
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Large crowds participating in Texas’ confusing presidential primary caucus system are clogging local and area polling places and slowing counts, just as election officials statewide had feared.
At Lake Shore Methodist Church, 3311 Park Lake Drive in West Waco, between 300 and 400 people representing two precincts were milling around this evening, looking for a place to caucus. Problem: There was no room in the church big enough to accommodate all of them.
Members of one precinct finally managed to caucus, while members of the other precinct waited for them to finish. There was some confusion over whether people had to stay after they signed up.
Over at Crestview Elementary School, 1120 N. New Road, an overflow crowd of Democratic voters wanting to caucus were moved from one building to another. No one expected the crowd to be so large.
The same thing erupted at G.W. Carver Academy, 1601 J.J. Flewellen Road in East Waco, where more than 500 people were ready to caucus just after the polls closed while about 100 were still lined up waiting to vote. Election officials moved the crowd from the cafeteria to the gym to accommodate everyone.
It was 8:30 before the last voter at Carver voted in the primary election. Then election officials began signing people up to caucus. There appeared to be about 500 people waiting to caucus.
When, at one point shortly after the polls closed, word got out at Carver Academy about Barack Obama’s winning the Vermont primary election, about three-quarters of the crowd on campus cheered.
At another point this evening, Obama and Clinton campaign officials could be seen huddling with precinct officials over complicated rules for Texas’ primary caucus system. Observers expected what was supposed to be a brief meeting to stretch on for more than an hour.
At Crestview Elementary School, precinct official Jim Tom Speer, taking stock of the huge crowd of Democrats ready to caucus this evening and the current president, remarked drolly: “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. If George Bush did anything, it was getting people to come out and vote.”
Local election officials worried that many Democratic voters, to avoid having to vote during the day and then return to the polls to caucus at night, would just make one visit close to the end of polling, then wait around a few minutes for a presumably brief caucus meeting.
Then again, tonight’s caucuses may just be huge because of the equally large attention devoted to the Democratic primary caucus system in Texas and the tight race between presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Not every polling place experienced massive caucuses. University High School, 2600 Bagby Ave in south central Waco, saw four or five dozen people come to caucus after the polls closed, with those representing Clinton slightly outnumbering those for Obama.
However, the number caucusing at University High School — one family participating consisted of four generations — never forced any moves to another hall.
At Crestview Elementary School, 70 voters signed up during the caucus for Obama, while 49 signed for Clinton. That apparently means Obama gets 9 delegates plus their alternates while Clinton Hillary gets 6.
Caucus chairman Michael Long said that while 119 Democrats signed to caucus at Crestview Elementary this year, only 4 signed up in 2004.
At University High School, the results were flipped: 26 people signed for Clinton, meaning she gets 7 delegates and their alternates, while Obama got 14 signatures, which means he gets 4 delegates.
Even at University High School, some confusion arose. When the Arivzu/Mireles family arrived to caucus, they immediately looked for the person in charge. The problem, they said, was nobody in charge.
Election officials were shutting down the poll station when Maria Mireles asked them about caucusing.
“They didn’t have anybody and they were already closing the doors,” she said. So she and her brother, Armando Arivzu, found they had little choice beyond volunteering themselves.
Mireles had been to a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign meeting a few days earlier explaining the caucus process.
“We weren’t going to let Clinton down,” she said.
Comments
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By Mike
March 4, 2008 9:32 PM | Link to this
The same thing happened in Hill County. In my precinct (Hubbard) approximately 100 people showed up and crowded into a small room where we were told that we were misinformed if we thought we could name our preferences at the meeting. When we disagreed, we were told that no one would be allowed to state presidential preferences. Half the people left in disgust. When it was later discovered that we could sign sheets to state those preferences, there were two (!) sheets available, each capable of holding 12 names. It was a complete fiasco and I blame county Democratic leaders for failing to adequately inform those who were conducting the meeting.
By van
March 5, 2008 10:32 AM | Link to this
No, no one should have LEFT! If you know what a caucus is and are informed, then you MAKE people abide by the rules! We ran out of sheets at ours as well, but you know what we did? Got blank sheets and everyone signed up in the same exact way as what was on the pre-printed form. Duh. I know that I would NOT have left my precinct caucus without calling SOMEWHERE for help if someone was giving me information that I knew was wrong.