Caucus Chaos
By lancingboy
@lancingboy (1385)
United States
March 6, 2008 12:00am CST
I paid more attention to the news this time lol.
Anyway, many things went wrong in the Texas caucus last night in Houston. First of all, they ran out of sign in sheets. Second, several precincts were in one building. Third, they didn't have enough volunteers for the caucus, but they did call extra policemen for security.
It was a complete nightmare at Namitz High School. There were 8 precincts in one building. Long lines. The Caucus began at 1:30 AM (that's right, in the morning!) and it was almost 3 AM before they finished. If that wasn't bad enough, lots of parents had to take their kids because of issues finding childcare, ect. Lots of the Middle School and High School students had to take the TAKS test that same day. If High School students don't pass the TAKS test, they don't graduate period.
What do you all think about all of that mess?
3 responses
@asuniqueasyou (354)
• United States
6 Mar 08
Our caucus was a bit chaotic as well. Normally the voting turnout at our precinct is very small and caucus participants can usually be counted with your fingers. We also had 2 precincts at one location. They did not expect the overwhelming number of attendees. at 7pm when our polls closed there were still 200+ people in line to vote. The election volunteers did the best they could but there were just so many people. Caucus participants began showing up at 7pm...by the hundreds!!! voting did not finish until 9:30pm. we too did not have enough caucus volunteers but I think we did pretty well managing the crowd. We have 500+ caucus participants!! we too ran out of sheets, but we were warned this could happen in advance and made copies before the sign in started. To make sure nothing went wrong, we numbered the sign in sheets. to make sure that people only signed one time, we marked their voter card with an x and did not give them a pen until we verified vote status. it went pretty smooth. we started caucus sign in at 10pm and finished that at 11:40. we finally called the meeting to order at 11:45. only 97 people stayed for the whole event. we were done by 1am. other than the waiting it wasn't so bad.
@lancingboy (1385)
• United States
7 Mar 08
I think hundreds turned up for the caucus in Houston too. Actually, I have no idea if it was in the hundreds or the thousands. It was one of those and people refused to leave until they cast their vote. The caucus didn't start for awhile because there were hundreds of thousands who actually voted this time! That is a whole lot more than the 3,000+ four years ago lol.
@lancingboy (1385)
• United States
7 Mar 08
I'm not sure, but they kept saying that the judge wasn't there. Are they suppose to have a judge present during the caucus? Four years ago, they didn't have much problem because only like 3,000 people voted in Houston then. This time the numbers were in the hundreds of thousands. I think that is the main reason why they started so late. There were very long lines everywhere.
@coolseeds (3919)
• United States
6 Mar 08
It is amazing how difficult they make it. This is how easy it could be. They mail ballots to those who registered to vote. The voters fill out the ballot. Then they drop off the ballot at their precinct after showing proper identification.
Some people don't know how to do things the easy way.
@lancingboy (1385)
• United States
7 Mar 08
I know lol! That would be a whole lot easier and something that makes common sense. Too bad people don't think of that. Then again, maybe they thought that some people wouldn't receive the ballots or something? Who knows?
