State chair election to be held Friday instead of Saturday?!?!?

[johncoby2]

I just heard that the election for state chair will be held at the Senate Caucues on Friday instead of on the floor Saturday. This will be HIGHLY unusual since no speeches will be done before Friday.

You guys heard anything like this?

[WestHoustonDem]

1. Where did you hear that?

:wtf:

[muse]

2. Hmm

I'm totally confused about the voting. I was reading on Burnt Orange Report that our votes are not individual - we vote as a senate district (?) and even if only part of our contingent attends the convention, the total number in our SD counts for the one candidate.

Am I making any sense here? I'm not claiming that I am.

But, maybe this has something to do with what you are asking. Maybe our SD's vote on Friday.

[WolverineDG]

4. Your delegation gets to vote

with the number of delegates you were allowed to have. Say your county can bring 50 delegates, but only 25 are able to go to the convention. You still get 50 votes. IIRC, at least how it happened in my delegation, the delegations that show up divide up the # of votes allowed for counties that don't send anyone.

dg

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

3. Ya know, I was thinking about that today

I'd heard that each SD votes their "delegation strength", not their head count at the convention. This is to keep it fair so that the far corners of the state have as much representation as the hometown hosts. If that's the case, then you have to count the votes by SD caucus. How they're allocated after that I have no idea, but I'm sure it's unambiguously spelled out in the TDP rules.:sarcasm:

Also, I remember two years ago votes being held at the caucus, but I don't remember voting on the floor.

[muse]

5. So, help me out here

My Senate District - 17 - with a whole bunch of delegates - is going to be casting all of its votes for one person for chair?

That has to be it right, because we can't be splitting up votes between various candidates if we are throwing in votes for delegates that aren't even in attendance.

I'm obviously confused how this works.

[johncoby2]

6. I would think you would come out with votes for each....

Just lie the National convention where votes for each candidate would be announced.

so the SD could be divided.

Right anyone>


BUT........why the vote on Friday instead of Saturday.

[crispini]

7. I believe you do split up the votes.

From the 2004 rules:

Each unit at each Convention shall vote
the full Delegate strength to which it is
entitled, divided proportionately to the
vote of its Delegates in attendance. (Texas
Election Code §174.068 and §174.096)

So in other words, if half of your delegation is missing and you are there, you get two votes.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

[crispini]

8. Well, I attended our SD's pre-convention meeting,

and they stated pretty clearly that the SD caucus, votes for committee delegates and SDEC members will be on Friday, but that the TDP chair race will go to the floor and it will be Saturday.

NOW, that said, I would not put it past any of those who are in favor of The Established Order to be pulling some tricky stuff if they thought it would favor their candidate, Mr. Ritchie, and of course since they are in charge of the agenda, that would certainly be possible.

Can you follow this up and keep us posted?

[muse]

9. I'm going to start asking some questions

I can't attend our SD-17 pre-convention meeting this Thursday (work commitment), so I'm going to ask my questions by email.

This is bringing into focus some comments that were made in our senate district convention that concerned me.

I think I'm understanding the proportional vote thing. If there are 150 of us in SD 17 and 2/3 of us in attendance vote for Maxey, then it doesn't matter how many of us were actually in attendance, 100 votes go to Maxey. Sound right?

[GlenMaxey]

10. Voting Procedure

This election will be on SATURDAY.

On Friday, each SD will elect a member to the Nominations committee. This committee will meet at 8 am Saturday. The committee issues a report with recommendations of names of Party Officers.

The convention comes back into session at 11:00 am. At some point, the Nominations Committee report will be presented. At that point, nominations will be open from the floor, and you can expect that all the candidates will be placed into nomination.

The vote must be by a signed written ballot or by a roll call vote for the office for Chair. (Discussions are beginning to get this settled and agreed upon so we don't have hours of parliamentary wrangling on the floor. The rules do not lay out exact procedures)

Every delegate present cast their vote for the candidate of their choice.

After the "raw votes" are counted, the folks counting the ballots, then allocate the votes for each county and then for each Senate District to the full voting strength of the district.

Example: If a county has 100 votes and there are 10 people present, the vote might by 5 for Maxey, 3 for Richie and 2 for Jones. That is the reported vote.

The "tellers" or "counters" would then allocate that vote for the roll call as 50 Maxey, 20 Richie, and 20 Jones.

If the SD has multiple counties, after all the counties PRESENT have done this process, then the percentages of the entire SD are applied to any county votes where there were NO delegates present.

Confusing as hell, yes.

This process is required by state law. It should be changed, because in effect it rewards those areas where the participation is lowest.

There will be some delegates in effect casting as many as 20 - 25 votes.

Glen Maxey

[merci_me]

11. Thank you .................

yes it is confusing, but your response was simple and easy to grasp. It also gives me some indication of what we can expect under a Maxey chairmanship, response and clarity.

[muse]

12. Thanks so much, Glen!

You certainly cleared this up in a hurry.

"hours of parliamentary wrangling on the floor" - that needs to be avoided at all costs. I can't sit through that!

[NoPasaran]

13. One more question, Glen

If the first ballot doesn't result in one candidate receiving a majority, is there then a runoff between the two highest vote-getters with the other candidates automatically eliminated, or will there be a chance of there being several more ballots, with the candidates striking whatever deals they can make with each other in return for their delegates' support, as in national conventions of yore?

[GlenMaxey]

14. Marjority Vote required

The rules simply say a majority vote is required. Once again, we hope to have an agreement that the appropriate folks (probably the Rules and/or Nominations Committee will saction so that everyone is clear going into Saturday's vote on the procedure.

I'm assuming there will simply be a run-off between the highest two voter getters on the first ballot. However, because the rules are silent, some folks could argue about dropping the lowest voter getter on successive rounds until a majority vote is obtained, etc.

You see why I propose that the Committees and/or convention ratifty some pre-agreed process? Chaos is not anyone's friend at a meeting with several thousand participants.

Glen