In all, we know about 40 precincts out of 170 with irregularities, ranging from false delegate counts, to false entries on sign-in sheets for Obama, to a few incidents following the statewide pattern of illegally taking or attempting to take caucus materials from elections judges. Like Greg Palast might say, it doesn't take much to change the outcome of an election. In El Paso, pro-Hillary volunteers seem to have protected the caucus results so they were similar to the popular vote, but that was not the case in most caucuses http://politics.nytimes.com/election-gui de/2008/results/states/TX.html .

As the original diary mentioned, only four big counties were orderly enough to report most of their caucus results, and in three of these, the popular vote and the caucus results were very similar.

The incident reports seem to have the worst incidents near the top of the list. Some of them include:

Precinct 56: a witness saw someone make false entries for Obama.  Clinton-supporting temporary officers had the convention seized from their control, and they were excluded from the process. It looks like out of state Obama supporters helped "elect" a new chair.

Precinct 45: a witness saw an Obama supporter making false entries. An Obama supporter announced that people should leave.

Precinct 61: heavily outnumbered Obama supporters controlled the precinct convention awarded 18 delegates to Obama and 16 delegates to Clinton in a precinct where there the preference was 89 Clinton, 16 Obama, 1 Richardson, and 2 uncommitted.

Precinct 71: At 7:05pm at the Precinct Convention, all of the voting for the primary was complete and all of the caucus goers were seated. ____ reported that the Obama chair waited an hour and said "we did not expect this many people so we will have to move" when no move was necessary. The chair said "just sign your name and address and then you can leave." When asked "what about our presidential preference?" the Obama chair replied "we don't have time for that...just write your name and address."

Precinct 36: an Obama supporter took control from a standing chair.  The witness reported that Republicans and out of state Obama supporters helped "elect" the new chair. The witness was ejected from the room when he tried to report this to the Texas Democratic Party.

Precinct 41: the attendees included a large number of African Americans who did not appear to be from El Paso. Some Obama supporters tried to have elderly voters write-in Obama as their preference.

Precinct 48: This may be the anecdote Pacific John wrote about.  According to the precinct captain, Obama organizers first tried to award the precinct to Obama via a show of hands. The actual preference was 74 Clinton, 33 Obama. The witness reported that she overheard an Obama organizer call in a false delegate count.

The reports go on and on.

It's no wonder that the Clinton campaign got in an early fight with the chair of the TDP (who by the way just endorsed Obama).

It's no wonder that the Clinton campaign got in an early fight with the chair of the TDP
(who by the way just endorsed Obama).

So a lot of folks are asking a pretty obvious question at this point - why didn't the press follow up on these two statements?

A footnote is that the letter Pacific John first wrote to a superdelagete he campaigned for (Representative Lois Capps), apparently had an effect. Rep. Capps was quoted on May 7, five days after her very public endorsement of Obama, that she was willing to change her endorsement to Hillary. That is a HUGE change, considering her son-in-law is Obama's National Press Secretary, and her daughter is the Communications Director for Ted Kennedy.  

[...] In fact, she said, she's prepared to change if the popular vote swings in the opposite direction.

There's no pep talk for super delegates, about how they should vote.  Capps said that she's been approached by her constituents and colleagues who want to talk to her about one candidate or the other.

"The super delegates should only ratify the popular vote," Capps said.  We should only confirm what the public wants.

"Some people believe that we should just listen to our hearts," she continued, "but really, we should all be speaking with the same voice.  I have endorsed Obama, but I have to be prepared to change my mind." http://www.newtimesslo.com/news/139/so-w hat-is-a-super-delegate/

I spoke with a few folks who are involved in collecting information on the problems with the caucuses in Texas, and one woman in particular is involved in hearing any challenges to the credentials issued by the party.  From what I understand, things are way out of balance down there regarding these challenges.

Remember earlier on in the campaign when people were accusing Hillary of "lawyering-up" her team in anticipation of playing a no-holds barred kind of primary fight?  Well the exact opposite seems to have occurred where these challenges are concerned and it seems to fit right in with that "Chicago smack-down" kind of politics we were promised last fall. It also follows a pattern set by Obama in his very first run at public office, when he sent a team of lawyers in to the registrar's office to challenge each and every signature on the petitions of his opponents.  Whether it was because someone signed their signature incorrectly (by printing rather than in cursive) or if the person collecting the signatures wasn't property registered, he managed to knock every one of his opponents off the ballot - including his main challenger, Alice Palmer.

Apparently, teams of lawyers go in to challenge Hillary's delegates, complete with Power Point presentations and everything.  Meanwhile, Hillary's folks are represented by everyday people like us - folks who saw problems or feel a need to speak up, and want to do the right thing.

The reason...?

No one expected Democrats to pull this kind of stuff (caucus irregularities or outright crimes) on other Democrats.  Or period for that matter.  Campaign staff and voters / caucus-goers were absolutely stunned at what they witnessed in Texas.  So the legal team didn't go into this with the idea that they'd have to deal with this kind of crap.

Just like in Michigan and Florida, BO's using everything at his disposal to make sure his opponent's supporters / voters don't get a voice at our party's convention this summer.  Only in this election could a guy hide from the voters of Michigan not once (taking his name off the ballot) - but twice (refusing to go along with a re-vote) and come away with not only the 55 delegates in "uncommitted" status, but also steal 4 of Hillary's delegates.

He's using every trick he can think of to disenfranchise voters and from what I've seen so far...

BO's about anything BUT inclusion and voting rights in this election.

Michigan.

Florida.

And now Texas.

So who'll be next you guys?