So you’re going to your Texas County or State Senate District Convention this Saturday as a delegate for your candidate of choice. Good news! This diary contains the basic information you need to do your delegate duty. I’m going to cover the basic who/what/where/when, give a rundown of what happens at the conventions, and provide more links than you can possibly click through between now and Saturday.
Important: If you are going to your convention as an Obama delegate, alternate, or observer, make sure to RSVP here. If you want to receive some training beforehand find a training event near you.
And while the information in this diary may be largely candidate-neutral, I’d just like to say that we’ve already Baracked the Vote, we’ve Baracked-Us the Caucus, and now it’s time to bring our BO-mentum to the Convention.
(Ok, that was horrible. I apologize.)
The Basic Run-Down
Show up to your convention location. Get in line to sign in. Sign in. Make sure to indicate your support for your candidate. Wait around for the rest of the people to sign in. Wait for the credentials committee to finish their business (more on this below). Meanwhile, vote on resolutions, visit the great vendors and displays, and meet your fellow Democrats. Once the committees are done, meet as a precinct to elect state-level delegates (more on this below, too). Stick around if needed for anything else. Retire to your favorite watering hole to celebrate our complicated but awesome Democratic process!
Before we get going with the specifics, one minor explanation: some of us will be attending County Conventions this Saturday March 29, while others of us will be attending State Senate District Conventions. Roughly speaking, more suburban/rural areas will meet as a county, whereas more urban areas meet as a State Senate district. In Travis County, where Austin is, we’re meeting as two State Senate districts. In Harris County, aka Houston, there are about six State Senate districts. Yet just north of here, Williamson county is meeting as a county. For the purpose of this diary, I will call them County Conventions. Because "County And/Or State Senate Conventions" gets a little wordy, no?
A Step-By-Step Guide To Attending Your County Convention:
1. Find Your Location.
The Barack Obama website has a great list of as many locations as they have information for at this time. Click here and scroll down to the interactive map to find your location.
Not all locations are listed yet. Not all counties and/or districts have decided where to hold it, yet. I know, no rush, they’re just this Saturday, right? I’m not sure what the delay is, and in some cases there are different reasons for it (turnout, venue size, disorganization). Particularly if you are in Tarrant County, there are no set locations yet. Tarrant County (State Sen. districts 7, 10, 12), the best things to do are to a.) bookmark the Tarrant County Convention page and check it frequently, b.) call or email your field organizer listed for your district.
2. Get There Early.
Each County Convention has a start time. In certain areas, these are strict sign-in times. If you are not there on time you will not count. In Travis County this is particularly urgent: IF YOU ARE NOT SIGNED IN BY 10:00 IN TRAVIS COUNTY YOU DO NOT COUNT. Get. There. Early. This is particularly key for Obama delegates since we should win the state, so if people are shut out they’re more likely our people. Worried? Call or email the field organizer listed for your location.
3. Bring Photo ID and/or Voter Registration Card, A Bill, etc.
Just like for the precinct convention, you will need to verify yourself during the sign-in process. Bring a photo ID. If you don’t have a photo ID that lists your current address where you vote (i.e. me with my NJ drivers’ license) also bring your Voter Registration card showing that address, and/or a bill with your address. Make sure you can be verified so you can sign in.
4. Be Prepared to Wait.
Once sign-ins are done, the Credentials Committee will meet. They will review any challenges to individual precinct conventions. Due to the unprecedented turnout, there are a few challenges and issues that will need to be addressed by these folks. Both campaigns will be filing legitimate challenges, and I am sure overenthusiastic supporters on both sides will be filing nit-picky challenges as well. Depending on how many challenges there are and how easy they are to resolve, this may take no time or quite some time. But, it is important that these get resolved. In some places the precincts didn’t do their math correctly, and the delegate numbers are off. This absolutely needs to be addressed before precincts can meet and elect their state-level delegates.
During this time you will also likely vote on county-wide resolutions. Here in Austin, I expect that we'll resolve to withdraw from Iraq and legalize marijuana. There are other, less big-picture resolutions up to vote on too, so please pay attention and give them careful thought. Many of those resolutions are the result of an activist group's long hard slog to gain attention for their issue, and they deserve our respect.
What else to do while you wait? Big conventions will have exhibits, booths, food, etc. Walk around! Meet new people! Talk about how much John Cornyn sucks and how you can’t wait to give Rick Noriega all of your money and your time and vote for him this November! Smaller conventions likely won’t have as many challenges, so you won’t do as much waiting around. (But you can still do that Cornyn Sucks / Noriega Rules thing.)
5. Ask Your Delegation Chair How to Vote.
Eventually you will meet as a precinct, and within your precinct elect a set number of delegates to the Texas State Convention, June 5-7 here in lovely Austin, Texas. Find your precinct’s delegation chair and ask them what the plan is. It is important that we follow voting strategies to maximize our delegates elected to the state level. I’m not going to go into said strategies here. My suggestion to you, if you are an Obama delegate, is that you attend a delegate and alternate training session with the Obama field staff.
6. Vote on State-Level Delegates as a Precinct.
Each county-level delegate gets one vote for state-level delegates. If you are interested in becoming a state-level delegate, tell your delegation chair, the person responsible for your candidate’s delegates at the county convention. Obama delegates: don’t know who this person is? Again, call or email your Obama field staffer. There may not be one. We do have 8,000 precincts, after all. You may need to step up and organize. But that’s no sweat! Yes We Can be organized for the county conventions.
7. Run to be an At-Large Delegate
So, here’s the deal. The sign-ins at the County Convention determine how each county’s delegates to the state level will be apportioned between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Uncommitted. (Yup, there are still Uncommitteds moving through the process, and God Bless ‘Em for their commitment to their candidate. Though I personally welcome you to switch to Barack Obama on Saturday.) After the precincts elect all of their State-Level Delegates, the nomination committee uses At-Large Delegates to balance out the county-wide contingent to the state. Balancing first will mean making sure that each candidate sends delegates that are proportional to the sign-in at the County Convention. Next, balancing will mean making the delegation demographically representative of the area in which you live. So we may need more males or females, more young people, more people of a particular ethnic group, etc. to make each delegation representative of the electorate and sufficiently diverse. Not selected in your precinct? File to be an At-Large delegate and see what happens!
8. After the Convention, Go Celebrate Democracy!
Time to relax, albeit momentarily. Pat yourselves on the back for a job well-done and go hang out with your other new Democratic activist friends. If your candidate’s supporters meet at a usual hang-out, that might be a good place to show up. It’s important that we Texas Democrats forge connections and get organized so that no matter who our nominee is, we can help get strong Democrats elected up and down the ballot.
Other Resources for Texas County Conventions
The Texas Democratic Party has a great page full of information.
The Lone Star Project also has some great information, which touches on how state-wide party law mandates that these conventions take place this Saturday.
Burnt Orange Report also put together a great list of convention locations and contact information. Look there if you need to find other delegates in your area.
Important Information for Obama Supporters and Volunteers
Obama folks, I particularly want you all to be organized. Our candidate is a community organizer, and we’ve got to follow his lead. Here are some resources from the campaign that will help all of us be Fired Up! and Ready To Go! to the County Convention this Saturday.
Texas County Convention Headquarters: Features PDFs of all the basic information you need, also features location look-up.
Obama Delegate and Alternate Training: Get informed before Saturday. Info sessions all this week across Texas.
Join the Obama County Convention Volunteer Team: If you’re not a delegate or alternate we still need your help making these conventions run smoothly.
Obama Delegate But Can’t Attend? Fill out this form and make sure to let the campaign know so you can be filled in for with an alternate.
Want to Help Obama in Texas?Use the Online Phonebanking Tool to call Delegates and Alternates and make sure they're ready for Saturday.
Kossack Texas Precinct Roll-Call
If you’re a delegate attending your county convention, list your precinct and candidate of choice in the comments below and I’ll add you to the list. We can try to put people in touch that way. Don’t know your precinct? It’s on your voter registration card, or you can use this lookup tool. Also, to that end, if you’re coming to the one in Austin for State Senate Districts 14 and 25, after sign-in has ended come find precinct 136 (that’s mine!) and say Hello! If you ask for Katherine, any Obama delegate for 136 should be able to direct you. You’ll know our delegates because of our awesome "Precinct 136" t-shirts.
Precinct | Kossack |
122 | Texasblu (O) |
136 | kath25 (O) |
277 | lirtydies (O) |
280 | Wino (O) |
1506 | Big Tex (O) |
2222 | Catte Nappe (O) |
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Recapping the Step-by-Step Process:
- Find Your Location.
- Get There Early.
- Bring Photo ID.
- Be Prepared to Wait.
- Ask Your Delegation Chair How To Vote.
- Vote on State-Level Delegates.
- Run To Be an At-Large Delegate, If You Want.
- Go To Your Favorite Bar and Celebrate Democracy.
Hope to see some of you there, and even more of you at the State-Level convention here in Austin this June!