Bill Clinton:Vote Early, Vote Often; "only place in America where you can vote twice"

[dajoki]

Home » Blogs » From The Road
February 20, 2008, 12:41 PM
Bill Clinton: Vote Early, Vote Often
Posted by Ryan Corsaro
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/02/20/politics/fromtheroad/entry3851975.shtml

GALVESTON, TEXAS -- Former President Bill Clinton continued today to try and drive a wedge of distinction between the record of his wife Hillary and the spirit of her opponent, Barack Obama.

“I think that good solutions are more important than good speeches,” said Clinton. “I think the fact of change is more important than the feeling of change.”

President Clinton pointed out the uniqueness of the Texas primary – which includes the ability to vote early – to a crowd of several hundred Clinton supporters.

“This is the only place in America where you can vote twice without going to jail,” he said. “And you all know how it works, right?”

If they didn’t, he went on to explain it. “So as soon as the polls close on the fourth, for fifteen minutes afterward you have an opportunity to vote again in 8,000 precinct conventions. This is a big deal. It would be a sad thing if she won in the daytime and it got taken away at night in the delegates if you didn’t show up.”

Clinton spoke from the bed of a pick-up truck outside of the Galveston County Courts, where a polling station was set up for early voters nearby.

Hoping to encourage supporters to visit the polling station, Clinton acknowledged the tight Democratic race. “She basically has won the big states and she has done very well,” he said. “She does well in the primaries, Senator Obama does well in the caucuses.”

Texas is the only state that has both. After voting in the primary on March 4th, Texas voters can caucus that evening for their candidates as well.

“This whole nominating process has come down in Texas and Ohio,” Clinton said. “If she wins in Texas and in Ohio, she will win in Pennsylvania. I believe she will win the nomination.”

[high density]

1. Texas' system sounds even worse than the silly WA primary

Why do these state parties feel the need to make it so complicated? What a joke.

[yellowcanine]

5. No kidding. Why not just have another ballot page for delegates?

That is the way it was in Maryland and it worked fine - even on the touch screen machines.

[texas_indy]

18. Texas does this for historical reasons.

Cross over voting down here has been very common down here for ever. It isn't unusual to have races where only one party has candidates running for a seat and this allows people down here to be a part of that vote. The caucusing done after the polling places closes then allows the party members to add extra weight for the selection.

[MonkeyFunk]

2. What a fucked up system!

God, I'll never understand how state parties come up with some of this nonsense.

[MADem]

3. Any caucus system is fucked up. It screws the people who MOST need representation.

The old, the shift working wage earners, the military, the sick, the hospitalized...

It's insane. But then, it's not what democracy looks like.

[TheDoorbellRang]

10. Yes. We may have gotten rid of the smoke-filled back rooms, but there's still a plethora of mirrors.

I've never followed the nuts and bolts of primaries in an election before, and so just innocently assumed that if a candidate got a certain percentage of the vote, they got a corresponding percentage of delegates at the convention. It seems like each state has some method at hand to skeew the results. Here in Illinois, for example, one must vote for the candidate AND the candidate's delegates in order for it to mean anything. If, for example, I vote for Obama and don't vote for any delegates too, my vote essentially doesn't count. Or if I vote for Obama the candidate and Clinton's delegates, I've essentially just voted for Clinton. The voter certainly can't afford to be ignorant of these consequences, but I'm afraid some are.

I've looked at a few other states and have been seeing some other convoluted MO's. After I go thru a few more I'll probably do a post on it. The primary and/or caucus methods in some of these states could definitely use a little sunshine.

[MonkeyFunk]

11. I just

can't understand why the parties would WANT to do these this way. It makes no sense.

[TheDoorbellRang]

16. This whole process has been a real eye-opener

I used to just think the electoral college was the main impediment to a true democracy; always seemed to me it totally discounted blue voters in red states and red voters in blue states. But after seeing how some of the delegates are apportioned I'm realizing we're even less democratic than I had previously supposed. I know you're pro-Clinton and I'm pro-Obama, but I will say if we hadn't had this battle, I never would have looked at how the individual states come up with their systems. It is, indeed, very strange in many states.

[MonkeyFunk]

17. Yeah, a lot of this was new to me, too

I figured all caucuses were like Iowa's, which while still deeply flawed, is at least somewhat comprehensible. But I had no idea other states had such fucked up systems until this year, nor did I realize how few people actually participate in caucuses.

I wish the DNC would make it a point to try to fix this system nationwide.

[TheDoorbellRang]

22. It's not just caucuses or open primaries

and I haven't seen anyone else address this yet. Take a look at some of the individual states' vote percentage and compare it to delegate apportionment. I was doing a state by state comparison using cnn's data, and it seems so flawed that I'm going back to each state to review it.

Remember when Nevada went to Hillary but Barack got an extra delegate? That was newsworthy I guess, but once we started doing multiple states, individual results didn't pop out as much.

Take just one example: Alabama. Obama took Alabama on Super Tuesday 56-42%. Alabama has 52 regular delegates and 8 super delegates. One would logically think then that Obama would receive 56% of the regular delegates, or 30, vs. 42% for Clinton, or 22. Last week I went to cnn's state site for Alabama data and they showed Obama 26, Clinton 25 -- that left 1 floater, I assumed. Today I revisited cnn on Alabama and they were showing Obama 20, Clinton 21, with 11 new floaters. I wondered WTF so went to Alabama's democratic party site, and they show 27 for Obama, 25 for Clinton. I'm sure they have some sort of convoluted system for apportioning delegates that I just don't get, but it's sure no wonder we have different delegate totals at every site we go to.

[LisaM]

4. It's ridiculous in Washington. At least twice as many people voted in the primaries

on the Democratic side alone, but the vote doesn't count. The newspaper today estimated that the Democratic caucuses pulled in about 244,000 voters, but the primaries had over 500,000 with many absentee ballots left to count (this is Democratic numbers only).

Worse, even though the election board told me that it's a crime to vote in the caucus of one party and the primary for another, and even though they have a list of people who committed to one party or the other (for purposes of the election) for each, nobody is going to compare the lists!

It's messed up here.

[billyoc]

6. Man, that's weird. I wonder how many people even know about it. nt

[dajoki]

24. That's what I thought...

and since it looks like my state(PA)may finally have a say in the outcome of a primary, I am going to fully check our rules.

[Cha]

7. Fuck off bil

[MonkeyFunk]

19. He should fuck off

because he's campaigning for his wife and telling people how to do it?

Your rabid hatred is getting out of hand.

[Cha]

21. Yeah, will you ever

go and just FUCK The FUCK OFF, bil fucking clinton.

[blogslut]

23. now now

I watched his speech when he came to Amarillo. He explained the Texas caucus system quite well.

Thanks Bill!

Because of you, not only will I vote for Obama in the primary, I am going to caucus for him on March 4!

[karynnj]

8. Weren't MD, VA, DC and WI the last 4 primaries?

Weren't they all won by Obama?

[jenmito]

9. “She does well in the primaries"? How many of her last ten losses were primaries?

He keeps on saying anything, true or not.

[NMMatt]

13. What they really mean is "Primaries where she has served in Office or was 1st lady"

That is New York and Arkansas, neighboring state primaries such as Oklahoma, Tennessee, Massachussetts and New Jersey and California. That is what she mean by Primaries.

So Primaries in VA, MD, DC, LA, and WI don't count obviously. I also find it hilarious that she talks about "Big states," and includes MA and NY, but somehow forgets IL, WA and VA.

[jenmito]

14. Exactly. And you left out FL where she went purely on name recognition!

Her campaign is clearly not connecting with the voters and I'm sure they'll FINALLY discover that on March 4th.

[cali]

12. god, I bet bill hates being

overshadowed by Obama. And he's still peddling that tired lie about how Hilly wins more primaries. Wrong, billy, Obama has won more primaries than Hill.

[WolverineDG]

15. Once more with feeling

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/WolverineDG/21

dg

[damntexdem]

20. Exactly what I've been saying ...

in support of Obama.