Report From Local Democracy

I was an election judge for the March 9 primary. I needed the money. Turnout was abysmal. Under 10% voting and most of that early voting. The poor Democratic primary schedule had a lot to do with it. Winners get anointed too fast and then the primaries come at such a rapid clip others can't mount a challenge. Another is that the vast majority of people are too discouraged and they feel disenfranchised. Voting no longer seems a civic virtue. It makes the voter seem partly responsible for the messes. Just one of my theories you can take or leave.

We have the eVote machines. The machines are fundamentally wrong, there is no way to easily determine if the votes the central computer reports are the real votes. There are many ways to gimmick the database. In fact, the controversy over the machine really started when one writer realized that for at least one company the software seems designed for vote-stealing, disabling audit trails and keeping three sets of vote totals. These issues are unknown to most users. I will add that if you have corrupt judges they can easily add votes at the end of the day. Actually anytime during the day but you add signatures at the end to avoid embarrassment if someone finds they already voted. The only check are the signatures, which are separate books not connected to the electronic system.

I persuaded several people to stay for the caucus and that was fun except I had to turn the machines in and couldn't stay or go out for coffee. I rushed them to get done so I could pack up and leave.

Help? - the Democratic party and the county administration are understaffed and had difficulty getting workers for what they pay. I ended up with only one clerk, a close friend, for a few hours in the morning who came back to bring me lunch and to help put away the machines and deliver the paperwork later.

Yes, I was alone more time than I was with someone. I will note that even for Harris County this is very rare. Most precinct judges get their family and friends to help and have several there. I didn't decide I would work until the last couple days and got assigned as a precinct judge just before 5 PM the previous day. The September election I recruited one member from a science fiction book group to help me.

Saturday March 27 I attended the Harris County - Senate District 11 Democratic convention. This was mainly to elect delegates for the state convention. A major lesson learned was why Kucinich was staying in. While he will likely have no delegates from Texas his team had the great majority of the resolutions - all of which passed. A report from another convention confirms that almost all resolutions that were introduced at the precinct level are passed and his supporters came prepared to the precinct caucuses with downloaded resolutions so even if they don't get elected they influence the party, become positions of the party, and may be written into the party platform.

I also served on the credentials committee which was mainly signing people in. Pat in another convention became a member of the resolutions committee and saw all the precinct resolutions. Great majority were downloaded Kucinich resolutions, other downloaded or copied from special interest groups, only around 10% seemed written by an individual or at the caucus.

At my convention the resolutions that made it to the floor, there were hundreds the resolution committee was looking at (but I bet most were duplicates), were all approved. Debate on four, some opposition on three, one was amended, one was closely split but passed. The convention by a narrow majority supported Kucinich's argument to pull out of WTO, NAFTA, and similar trade treaties. Everyone would have supported that there are problems with the agreements, the problems with pulling out completely a pro-labor crowd did not want to hear. We voted on about a dozen resolutions. At the end of the meeting a motion was made to accept whatever the resolutions committee decided on all other resolutions.

Pat and I were both struck by how the Democratic party was like a club. Some long-time members really run things and sweep everybody along. They have experience with the rules and how to get what they want accomplished while moving things to the next item. I don't think anything occurred at the meeting that the few leaders didn't want. As an example Pat had a resolution that a majority of her resolutions committee didn't want, poorly written, and they voted it down. The chairwoman came back and it was her resolution so she called another vote and got it to the floor.

My website name seems a misnomer, maybe I should call this mad and angry moderate news. The one's calling themselves liberals in my party are pushing for radical makeovers regardless of political realities: lowering the retirement age, tripling minimum wage, free universal health care, withdrawal from all trade treaties, pure libertarian sounding open immigration, a cabinet department of peace, repeal everything related to the Patriot Act and similar left platforms. The only debates had to due with mandatory jail sentences on drivers who cause serious injury or death to motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians and how far to close US markets, The traffic accident resolution passed after removing mandatory jail time but making it a more serious offense then now. It likely would have been voted down or amended more except for a strong appeal from a motorcycle club member who says they buried 18 friends last year from motorcycle crashes, 17 caused by failure to yield of car drivers.

I had a private debate over gay marriages. Some of the older crowd are still unsure about that. An argument that gay partners cannot get health insurance unless the state recognizes the partnership and requires employers to offer benefits seemed persuasive. Gay related resolutions did not make it to the floor in my convention - ran out of time.

Very interesting experiences and I recommend everyone attend your caucus and move up your political participation. Saw the impressive Democratic candidate against DeLay. In between all the business candidates drop by and speak a little. There was a rumor that Morrison would be a stealth campaign. No way. He spoke like an old-style New Deal Democrat and vows to run an in-your-face campaign against the most powerful man on the Hill. Most people hadn't heard much about him but he got several standing ovations and lots of supporters.

I am now a delegate to the state convention which will be held in Houston. I haven't figured out suitable punishment yet for my brother for not voting. I should also get onto some people for not attending the caucus. It was fun. One major lesson learned was as a speaker said - talking and yelling at the TV doesn't change things. Taking some action does. We can't just talk among ourselves about how bad Bush is, we have to give the neutrals a reason to vote for us and cast doubt among those who support the GOP. Kevin Drum had an old article about how the grassroots Texas GOP must now be becoming closet revolutionary fundamentalists worse than the Taliban based on their party platform. We need to start dragging them out of the closet. Dragging some of the top Texas GOP officials out of their closets might be smart too.