Texas held the nation’s first primary on March 4. In the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, Kesha Rogers placed second. Because no one got as much as 50%, a run-off primary will be held on May 27.
Rogers is the candidate backed by Lyndon LaRouche’s organization. See this story about her, written before the results were known. The preliminary Democratic primary results for U.S. Senate are: David Alameel 47.06%, Rogers 21.72%, Maxey Marie Scherr 17.69%, Harry Kim 8.93%, Michael Fjetland 4.57%.
The Texas primary for both major parties had low turnout. Texas had 13,445,285 registered voters as of November 2013. Although not all the 2014 primary returns have been counted, so far the total vote cast for Governor in the Republican primary is 1,333,010, and the total vote cast for Governor in the Democratic primary is 546,480. By contrast, in 2010, there were 1,484,542 votes in the Republican gubernatorial primary and 680,548 in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
The low turnout is good news for the 1787 Party, which hopes to petition for a place on the November ballot. Voters who voted in the primary cannot sign for a new party or an independent candidate. Texas is the only state which doesn’t let voters sign for an independent or a new party if the voter voted in the primary.
Texas, like most states only lets a voter participate in the nomination activities of a single party.
The Democratic and Republican parties nominate by primary. The Libertarian Party has the option to nominate by primary or convention, but chose to nominate by conventions. The other parties, including the Green, Constitution, and 1787 parties nominate by convention.
Texas law does not require pre-qualification in order to make nominations, nor does it have a post-nomination process to qualify nominations made by the party insiders. Instead, nomination and qualification are concurrent.
The convention process begins with precinct conventions, which will be held next Tuesday. At these precinct conventions, voters sign in just like they would at a primary election, and take the following oath:
“I swear that I have not voted in a primary election or participated in a convention of another party during this voting year. I hereby affiliate myself with the 1787 Party.”
It is the count of persons who affiliate with the party at these conventions that determine whether the party nominees qualify for the general election ballot.
Parties may also supplement the convention attendees with petition signers. Restrictions on signing such a supplementary petition are identical to participating in a convention. You may not sign the petition if you voted in the primary or participated in the convention of another party; you may not vote in a primary or participate in the convention of another party if you sign a supplementary petition.
Jim, is there any mechanism in place in Texas to prevent voters who voted in yesterday’s Republican primary from voting in the Democratic run-off primary on May 27? I assume there is such a mechanism. Thank you.
It used to be that when you voted in the primary, your registration certificate was stamped with the name of the party. At the beginning of each even year, voters are issued a new certificate without indication of party affiliation, since there is no permanent party affiliation. A voter would show the certificate at a party convention, or the runoff.
With the advent of voter ID, the stamping of the registration certificate is optional, so it might be a bit easier to sneak in.
In Texas, primaries are conducted by the county parties, rather than the county clerks. But the county voter registrar provides the registration rolls to the parties, who returns them after the election to the voter registrar (bearing signatures of those who had voted). The registrar then returns the updated rolls to the parties before the runoff.
In 2012, when the primary was delayed, and occurred after the conventions, part of the court orders were a requirement that the parties return the convention sign-in sheets, so that they could be used to screen out voters at the primary.
Early voting is conducted by the counties. Since voters can vote at any early polling site in a county, over a two week period, electronic voting rolls are used, to prevent double voting. Instead of signing next to your name in a printed roll, a sticker is printed, affixed to sheet of paper, and you sign that. In this case, the voter roll is automatically updated with the party you voted for, as well as that you have voted.
One reason why early voting ends the Friday before election day is so that the voting rolls may be printed for each election precinct, with the record of those who have already voted.
Presumably, the electronic voting rolls will be updated for those who voted on election day.
There are probably a few voters who slip through due to mistakes by election judges. And it quite conceivable that participants in a Libertarian convention could vote in a primary runoff, even though they would be violating oaths that they had signed.
In 1992, there was an extremely close Democratic runoff for Texas Congressional District 29 between Gene Green and Ben Reyes, in which it appeared that there were a couple of hundred voters who crossed over from the Republican primary, which included the presidential preference primary with George HW Bush. Runoffs are only conducted in the areas where they are needed, so some voters might not have even realized they had voted in Republican primary for the congressional district.
During the court case, crossover voters were called to testify as to who they had voted for. In Texas, the secret ballot only applies if you voted legally. You may be compelled to disclose who you “voted” for if you did not. One voter told the judge (paraphrase), “I’m 83 years old, I’ve had a good life, but you better come put the cuffs on me now, because I’m not going to tell you who I voted for.”
During the court case, it was discovered that there were some precincts that had been excluded from voting in the primary, and others that had been included. This was because of the extremely convoluted boundaries of the 1990s Martin Frost gerrymander. So rather than try to determine whether crossover votes had nominated Green, a new runoff was ordered using the correct boundaries, which Green won by a more comfortable margin. Green has represented the district ever since.
The records of which primaries a voter voted in are maintained. I remember one election where a candidate claimed that they had never voted in a Democratic primary, and there was an opposition add that showed he had voted in a Democratic primary in the 1970s. Wendy Davis often voted in the Republican primary. She said that as a lawyer, she wanted to have an effective vote in judicial elections, which in Tarrant County are decided in the Republican primary.
Ironically (wc?), the Democratic Party tried to bar a candidate from running for Davis’s senate seat because he had previously voted in Republican primaries. He eventually agreed to withdraw.
Richard,
The Impeach Obama theme of the Kesha Rogers LaRouche Democratic Campaign has strong support across the entire political spectrum in Texas. Five of the sitting Congressman and the Lieutenant Governor are on record as calling for the IMPEACHMENT OF OBAMA.
Now, as I understand the election laws of Texas, relative to the circumstances we are facing today, there are 13.4 Million registered voters. In the Republican Primary for Senate 1.4 million plus or minus voted. In the Democratic Primary something like .6 million voted plus or minus. So, totally the two, you get 2 million voted in the Primary Elections.
Now, if you take the 13.4 million and subtract the 2 million, that leaves something in excess of 11 MILLION WHO are eligible to vote in the May 27 elections.
And at the rate that Obama is becoming more and more wildly unpopular, perhaps many other Candidates running in the run-offs will want to get on the IMPEACH OBAMA bandwagon with Kesha Rogers??? It might be the thing to do if you want to WIN YOUR ELECTION!!!!