Clinton and Obama Supporters Accuse Each Other of Breaking Texas Caucus Rules

Local television station Kvuereports that both the campaigns of senator Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are accusing each other of breaking the Texas Democratic Party's caucus rules even before Texans started caucusing. That caused the Texas Democratic party to send out a memo telling both sides to behave.

Because of the high stakes and potentially decisive nature of the contests, everyone's on edge, quick to try to seize an advantage, and quick to point fingers.

There are 141 delegates at stake for the Democrats in Ohio and 193 in Texas. At stake in Rhode Island, which also held its primary today, are 21 delegates. Vermont has 15 Democratic delegates.

A Democratic presidential candidate must have the support of 2,025 delegates to win their party's nomination.

Real Clear Politics has a breakdown of the delegate count for the two Democrats so far here.

The Dallas Morning News reported over the week-end that Clinton's caucus training materials instructed supporters not to cede leadership positions to Obama's supporters:

"DO NOT allow the supporter of another candidate to serve in leadership roles ...
If our supporters are outnumbered, ask the
Temporary Chair if one of our supporters can serves as the Secretary, in the interest of fairness. ... The control of the sign-in sheets and the announcement of the delegates allotted to each candidate are the critical functions of the
Chair and Secretary. This is why it is so important that Hillary supporters hold these positions."

Obama supporters in both Ohio and Texas were e-mailing each other over the week-end to remind their friends and associates to go to the polls and caucuses prepared.

That meant programming voter protection numbers into their cell phones, arming themselves with digital video cameras, and making sure the date and time stamp functions were turned on in case anything shady were to happen.

I just checked in with an Obama supporter volunteering in Houston, and she says that everything's going smoothly, and it's pretty calm.

Did you caucus this evening? Did you take any pictures or shoot any footage? Share them with your fellow readers by sending them my way, and I'll post anything worthwhile here.

Update: MSNBC reports that the Clinton campaign just held a conference call alleging "that
Obama supporters were confiscating precinct chairman manuals at the caucuses, as well as locking out Clinton supporters from the precincts."

A lawyer from the Obama campaign jumped on the call to refute the charge. Read about it at MSNBC.

Or listen to the callhere.

Update II: Reader Terry Gardner from precinct 2312 in Mesquite, Texas reports that chaos was the ruling factor of the evening in the caucusing process in his precinct, rather than outright, clear-cut cheating:

"At least 200 voters showed up for Caucus after polls closed - after waiting for 30-45 minutes with no info, it was announced that the precinct chair was not there and could not be reached - after about 15
more minutes an election judge for Dallas county who had been there all day for the primary election said that all they could do was have us print our names and addresses on notebook paper - it was grossly unorganized, who knows how many pieces of paper floating around that room - and where they ended up.

The room was divided into a side for Hillary and a side for Obama - but there was no notation on the pages we signed that stated which candidate we were voting for, only the precinct number.

Top Image: SBatterman
__Bottom Images of Clinton supporters at the precinct 2312 caucus held at the Tosch Elementary School __in Mesquite, Texas: Terry Gardner