Clinton Press Release: MEMO - Caucus Irregularities
March 4, 2008 | Permalink
[Clinton Campaign Press Release from March 4, 2008]
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March 4, 2008
MEMORANDUMTO: Interested Parties
FROM: Lyn Utrecht
Campaign Counsel
RE: Caucus IrregularitiesThe campaign legal hotline has been flooded with calls containing specific accusations of irregularities and voter intimidation against the Obama campaign. This activity is undemocratic, probably illegal, and reflects a wanton disregard for the caucus process.
The three most egregious categories are:
1) Irregularities: Prematurely Taking Precinct Convention Packets by Obama Campaign
Numerous calls have shown that Obama supporters prematurely removed convention packets from polling places. Packets may not legally given out until 7:15 PM or when the last voter has cast a ballot in the primary. The Texas State Party warned the Obama campaign in writing that they may not take these packets early or remove them from the polling locations. The Party directed that these irregularities be reported to law enforcement “since they amount to criminal violations.” The Party stated “removing convention packets . . . will not be tolerated.”
A sampling of the precincts where this occurred are:
- 659 – Tarrant
- 709 – Houston
- 2316 – Tarrant
- 1205 – Dallas
- 3127 – Bexar
- 3082 – Fort Bend
- 18/224 – Harris
- 3221 – Dallas
- 87 – El Paso
- 851 – Houston
- 115 - Harris
- 470 – Galveston
- 388 – Harris
- 3000 – Dallas
- 1214 – Dallas
- 20 – Medina
- 205 – Walker
2) Voter Intimidation: Lock-out of Clinton caucus goers by Obama Campaign
Numerous calls have been received that the Obama campaign has taken over caucus sites and locked the doors, excluding Clinton campaign supporters from participating in the caucus. The Clinton supporters have been unable to enter the premises to caucus. In at least one instance, law enforcement was called and forcibly opened the caucus site.
A sampling of the precincts where this occurred are:
- 4401 – Dallas
- 2052 – Tarrant
- 4402 – Dallas
- 75 – Harris
- 18 – Hardin
- 259 – Harris
- 124 – Nueces
- 4050 – Tarrant
- 115 – Harris
- 6 – Roma County
- 78 – Jefferson
- 117 – Denton
3) There are numerous instances of Obama supporters filing out precinct convention sign-in sheets during the day and submitting them as completed vote totals at caucus. This is expressly against the rules. The sign-in sheets were copied by the Obama campaign from the Texas Democratic Party website and taken by supporters to various polling places to sign-up caucus goers prior to the start of the caucuses
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This will be all over the news and i hope it is i cant belive something like this would happen then again its politics right bull i think legal action should take place how do we know this hasent happend elsewere and for obama he ought to be ashamed and hes about change and peace right if you people cant see it threw this that hes a fake well theres something wrong he should be accountable for his actions period then again lets favor obama because why we feel sorry for him i dont sorry
It has happened before. There were numerous questionable practices used by the Obama campaign in Iowa. I read reports made by several precinct captains.
How can we expect an ethical president when the tactics of his campaign are dubious?
The Obama campaign’s convention training followed Democratic Party Rules to the letter. Everyone was told explicitly to comply with the rules. If someone did not do that (and I take everything the Clinton campaign says with a large grain of salt), don’t blame the campaign.
Oh, and the idea of a Clinton supporter talking about the need for an “ethical president” or “dubious” campaign tactics is laughable.
Has everyone lost their minds? How can something a supporter does (if in fact they did do this and it wasn’t one of Hillary’s stunts) really reflect on Obama. He always speaks facts and doesn’t get involved with name calling and such. He would never approve of this kind of thing.
Hillary won’t put up her tax return, has lied about NAFTA and many other things. I know how Hillary works and it’s not with an open book.
Go Obama, bring peace to our world if you can. I for one want someone to try. I think you can come the closest.
When do we accept criminal activity as acceptable. Have we become so “Bushed and Cheneyed” that we disregard voter intimidation and suppression. Sen. Obama, Jessie Jackson Sr. and Jr., Al Sharpton, and every other American should be screaming and denouncing these tactics to the rafters.
Silence condones, but it is politically beneficial to the Obama campaign. The caucus process favors Sen. Obama and is far from being democratic when the rules are followed. Throwing out the rules further taints the process and harms every Democrat who cast a ballot.
As the candidate of hope and change, this is a bad way to start.
In the Colorado caucus the Obama campaign held tarining courses on how to cheat Hillary supporters. I was there and I saw it happen
I served as precinct captain for my convention/caucus and there were several Obama campaign (paid workers), none from Texas who tried to get into our convention/caucus and I had to have election judge ask them to leave twice because they were in violation of state laws. I did not call in to complaint hotline because when I asked election judges to resolve the situation they did.
It is quite clear that there have been some, at the very least questionable techniques used by the Obama campaign to mainipulate the results of caucuses around the country. You can go to youtube and view some video that was taken during some of the caucuses where Obama supporters are using very agressive and out of line techniques.
I signed up for Obama e-mails and the first e-mail sent from his local campaign was a request for supporters to go to the upcoming Clinton rally and basically disrupt it with loud visible support for Obama. Of course he keeps his hands clean while his underlings do all the dirty work. Reminds me too much of the Bush family.
Clintons are assholes. they’ve been involved in texas politics for 20 years (35 if you count mcgovern!!) and it’s obama’s fault?
Something similar happened in Colorado and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been that way in a number of states - Obama needs to be notified - this needs to be headline news nationally, Delegates need to be taken away from Obama - Dean needs to set up rules AND PUNISHMENT for this. That’s not the kind of President I want - I thought he’d make a good vice President - Now I have my doubts - What kind of sneaky Republican campaigning is this?????????? Collea-Devi goetz
p.s. I’m going to start spreading the news to major outlets.
I am a Hillary supporter, but please hear me out. I have the freedom to vote in this country just as other voters do. But it must be clear to everyone….this must be a fair vote to count.
I traveled to Texas to help the Hillary campaign. I was sent to canvas homes, put up signs, rally 100 feet from the voting sites and to make calls. The Hillary campaign couldn’t have been filled with more fun, energetic, passionate and fair playing individuals. We were told a day before the election that the Obama camp had a reputation of voter intimidation and of totally taking over the caucuses.
I thought it might be true but figured it may have also been exaggerated.
I arrived at 7:15pm to a caucus that had 3 precincts voting in a small church.
Because the church was undergoing a remodel, the caucus couldn’t hold all the voters. There was mass confusion among everyone. One of the HIllary observers ( from our camp ) tried to get voters to complete the caucus voting sheet on a table brought out from the church, a few of the Obama “supporters”
started yelling at the voters claiming that the Hillary camp was trying to invalidate their votes because the votes were being taken off the church property.
Once the church opened up the doors, the Obama camp wouldn’t let me in
to observe to ensure that the votes were being taken fairly.
I finally had to get a police offer to let me in. Get this…the lady who wasn’t letting me in the doors was wearing an Obama tshirt.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Both the obama and hillary observers agreed that the caucus vote to pick the delegates should be taken outside in the alley. Hillary supporters were out numbering the Obama supporters in one precinct and the Obama observer told the hillary voters that they didn’t have to stay for the vote count. They let approx 6 voters go. In the end, that precinct won to Hillary.
In Summary….this specific caucus (3 precincts ) were completely over run with Obama supports/observers who tried everything they could to intimidate, control and overpower the caucus to their advantage. I really could not believe this was happening.
Obama is a great community organizer. An organizer who can organize his supporters to rally hard against the competition and do whatever it takest to win.
Hillary will do whatever it takes to win by playing fair and NOT intimidating.
Kenny
So why isn’t this going anywhere? I forgot all about the issue until I just saw a video on Hillaryspeaksforme.com. It’s the video of the day for 3/30. Are Texans contacting their precinct chairs to remedy this or making noise to get this back into the press? I know lots of things can be happening locally that will never boil up to the surface nationally - such as the huge enthusiasm for Hillary that the press seems to be unable to notice.
But voter fraud is serious. Do we really want an election result based on fraud in at least one state and voter disenfranchisement in two others? And, Florida Dems didn’t even get to set the date for their primary. Their republican governor set it so the R’s could go early there. The state law requires that the D’s and R’s hold their primaries on the same date. So, if Florida Dems didn’t vote early, they wouldn’t be able to vote at all.
Some very whacky voting practices going on this year.
So, I’m writing an op-ed piece for my local paper about Michigan and Florida hoping it will get in as an opinion letter. But even if it doesn’t, the editor sees that someone is thinking about this, and enough “someone’s” eventually become a story. I’d write one about what happened in texas, too, if I knew enough. Better yet - someone from Texas write up all the clearest details like the story above and send it to all sorts of print and online media outlets all over the country.
Best of luck Texas. We were all so proud of you. Still are!
Vic
Barrack Obama’s 11 largest winning percentages were ALL in caucus states. I have calculated that Obama won 164 delegates more than Hillary Clinton did in the caucus states. The actual accurate winning margin probably should have been half of that amount, or 82 delegates. Since Hillary would have gained 82 delegates (the ones that incorrectly went to Barack Obama), you can easily see how the caucus state votes actually hijacked the election two months ago.
Look at tonight, Obama won in North Carolina rather easily and Hillary barely won in Indiana, yet Obama will only pick up a 10 to 16 delegate advantage even though twice as many people voted in those two states than voted in ALL of the caucus states. It became impossible to overcome the caucus state votes even though those votes represented a microscopic 3% of all the votes that were cast in the election.
There was no choice this year, the fix was in. The odds that the 11 top winning percentages for Barack obama would all be from caucus states cannot just be coincidental, the odds are in the billions that it was a coincidence. Barack Obama gained way too many delegates from an unfair and unjust caucus system that did not truly reflect the will of the voters in the caucus states.