RIGGED? Texas Democrats Warn of Iowa-Style Mishaps to Come in Their State’s Upcoming Primary
The unprecedented disaster that is still ongoing in Iowa after their caucus ended in disarray on Monday may not be an isolated incident for the Democrats.
Texas Democrats are warning that their state’s upcoming primary on Mar. 3 could undergo similar problems because of how they changed the manner in which they report their results from the last time around.
The Texas Democratic Party was recently informed by the Texas Secretary of State’s office that they will be unable to provide the numbers to allocate a majority of the state’s 228 delegates on the night of the primary. With a close race expected and Texas being such a delegate-rich state, this impending fiasco could blow Iowa’s out of the water.
State election officials have told Texas Democrat officials that their new reporting system has serious limitations, and it may take days to determine who is the actual winner of the primary. Nobody knows for sure what will be done to the votes during the lengthy deliberative process, and how it will effect the integrity of the primary vote.
Texas’ presidential primary is scheduled to take place on Super Tuesday. They will hold their primary simultaneously with the states of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Democrats Abroad, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. It is the day that ultimately could decide the Democratic nominee and may ultimately be besieged with reporting concerns.
Because of the complex new reporting systems, the state will only be able to collect data at the county level on the first night. They will need additional data from the senatorial district and precinct levels in order to tally who gets 149 of the state’s available delegates. This could take days to accomplish, the state has reportedly told Democrat Party officials.
Democrat officials are already blaming the Republican-led state government for the problems that will likely arise from this complicated new system.
“Texas is more important to presidential campaigns than ever before and could make or break campaigns. With one of the largest delegations, in one of the most diverse states in the country, Texas is the pathway to winning the Democratic nomination,” said Manny Garcia, who works as executive director of the Texas Democratic Party.
“The public deserves to see the vote and the delegate results on election night, and we urge the Texas Secretary of State’s office not to leave Texas voters and our nation in the dark,” he added.
The Texas process works by distributing 149 district-delegates proportionally among candidates who receive 15 percent or more of the vote among various Senate districts. The number of delegates up for grabs per Senate district depends uon how many people voted for the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and the 2018 Democratic nominee for governor. Each district is appointed between 2 and 10 delegates during the election cycle.
The chaos and confusion may result in the Democrat Party becoming more hands-on in the process, which will likely anger anti-establishment Bernie Sanders’ supporters who do not trust the party brass. Democrats are considering posting district-delegate distribution totals from outside of the Secretary of State’s web portal. This is highly unusual, and it is unclear what the state’s oversight role would be in the Democrats’ delegate counting.
“If we can confidently acquire and report in a timely manner election results by every category necessary to award delegate counts then we will do so,” Garcia said. “Transparency is our top priority. We will make further comments on our plans in the near future.”
The Democrat primary season has gotten off to a wild start, and it could become far more frenetic in the weeks to come.
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