'Nother Question-the County Convention-how does that work?

[liveoaktx]

I see in the rules that the County Convention is held on the second Saturday after the primary but how does it work? Can everyone in the county go? (assuming they voted and they are a Dem) Is it that IF you were nominated as a potential delegate to the state convention, you get voted on there? This county didn't have a county convention after the last primary so I don't know what it is.

[crispini]

1. If you went to your precinct convention and were elected as a delegate,

then you go to County, that's how you get there. Or, some very large cities have Senatorial district conventions instead of county conventions.

[liveoaktx]

3. So, to be precise, it's ONLY open to delegates and the exec committee

Let me ask again, no one that is just a voting members of a given precinct goes? So that it's a small subset of what was supposed to happen at the meeting after the primary?

[crispini]

4. I read in another thread that you can ask to be put on the list

of delegates for up to three days after the precinct convention, although I'm not sure about that. You do not have to physically attend the precinct convention to be a delegate. I was offering my voters all day the chance to just "sign-in" and be elected as a delegate to the Senatorial Convention. In the vast majority of precincts, they have more delegate spots than interested delegates. We had 28 spots and we are sending 7 people, because that's all that showed up. So for all intents and purposes, right now, anybody who is interested can go, but you can't just show up to the Senatorial Convention, you have to be put on the list. That's my understanding anyway.

Why not download a copy of the TDP rules and check for yourself? See the link at http://www.txdemocrats.org/

Edited to add: Did you not have a precinct convention in your precinct? Any eligible Dem voter can show up and run their precinct convention if there is not one. I know several people who held precinct conventions of one. One person. Needless to say, they got elected. :rofl:

[liveoaktx]

5. No, and I didn't know till I read that thread after that anyone

could run it. Looked up the rules in the afternoon and saw that the precinct chair was supposed to have it and they didn't.

Last night I emailed the new county chair to ask her to put me on the list-is I don't hear back by this afternoon, I"m going to call the precinct chair and ask.

I'm a little frustrated:)

[crispini]

6. Good job, I think that your contacting them will do the trick.

It sounds like you have some slugabeds there. It may feel frustrating but please keep trying! I hope to see you at State! (If I get there -- my Senatorial district is kind of competitive. :P )

[silverlib]

12. Just called - not three days

I just called the Travis County Democratic Party and he says three days is not a rule. I was an election judge outside my precinct, so didn't attend the meeting (if there was one). He said all I had to do was to e-mail him and he would be putting everything together and I could still be a delegate. So, I think as long as you let them know before they put the packets together, you can still be a delegate if a slot is available.

Thank you for giving me the info to call.

[NoPasaran]

2. The County Convention

It's supposed to happen on March 25th this year. Each precinct was allocated some number of delegates who are seated at the county convention. During the county convention, each precinct holds a caucus to choose its delegates and alternates for state...if necessary some precincts can be combined for this caucus if they don't rate delegates on their own. In addition, a convention also includes endless speeches from your local elected officials and candidates and interminable debates over various resolutions.

Hope you make it to Fort Worth!

[liveoaktx]

7. To be precise-is it that ANYONE that voted in the primary can attend

(any Dems, that is)in order to vote in delegates that will then go to the state convention in FW?
After the 2004 elections, this county had no after election precinct meetings nor a county convention, so I am just trying to understand what should have happened.

How, typically, do other counties tell people that there *is* a county convention? Ad in the paper?

[NoPasaran]

8. The convention itself is open to anyone

But just delegates elected at the precinct convention (or added to the roll from Dems from that precinct who voted in the primary) get to vote.

The election judge for the precinct should have a packet for the precinct chair (or whoever convenes the precinct convention) that among other things includes a set of the rules for conducting the convention, a list for reporting the dlegates to the county convention, and a notice of the time and place for the county convention.

I don't know whether or not Travis County puts a notice in the paper---I would imagine that there is some kind of requiremnt for some kind of public notice. I do remember getting a post card sent to all the delegates in 2004.

[crispini]

9. Your county had no precinct conventions OR a county convention?

Call them, call them every day if you need to, and I think you can make it to State easily.

[liveoaktx]

10. Yes, in 2004. This time it doesn't appear there were precinct

meetings last night. I tried to call both the chair and the precinct chair this morning, neither are home but I'm going to keep trying. In 2004 because there was no county convention, nobody got put in as a delegate (except the county chair and his wife) and the county chair at that time approached us before the Houston convention and asked if we wanted to go. We did, but it was a fluke.

[liveoaktx]

11. So, last word (I think) on this. The interim chair had made up

sign up sheets for the vote where people could say they'd like to be delegates but apparently only precinct put out the sign up sheet. She said the other people must have decided they didn't like the idea. I've asked her if telling her in email constitutes a request to be considered for the vote and she is going to hold a county convention on the 25th, with a vote to decide who will be delegates.