County Democratic convention: Chaos behind the scene

McALLEN - Political excitement slowly churned into confusion, panic, frustration and rage Saturday as the hours wore on during Hidalgo County's largest Democratic Convention.

Some delegates first showed up at a wrong location, the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg.

Others thought the doors at the McAllen Convention Center were opening at 7 a.m. - two hours before convention officials had planned.

Folding chairs to accommodate more than 1,000 precinct delegates were numbered between 1 and 144 to group the delegates, chosen earlier this month, according to their precincts.

The precincts were not in numerical order forcing attendees to scan rows and rows of chairs to find their place.

Delegates had a hard time finding the most important table that day - where they receive credentials to officially cast their vote for one of the presidential candidates.

No food was available frustrating hundreds of restless delegates as the hours ticked by into the late afternoon.

By 6:30 p.m., the man responsible for organizing the convention - Hidalgo County Democratic Chairman Juan Maldonado - could be heard shouting from the podium:

"I need help up here folks. Staff! Staff! Staff! We are fixing to collect documents over here," he yelled. "Or are we supposed to send them somewhere else? I need help. Staff! Help! I need help."

It was finally time for the thinning crowd of delegates to hand in their official votes.

‘Security, please!'

County political parties across the state held conventions Saturday. Republicans also held their conventions, but the tight presidential race for Democrats made those events the ones to watch.

The county gatherings are part of a four-tier system - primary elections and caucuses, county conventions and the state convention - used in Texas to determine the state's 228 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, where the party's presidential nominee will finally be chosen. The primaries and caucuses held March 4 only decided 126 of the delegates.

Now, beginning at the county convention level and working up to the national convention, delegates will be narrowed down by internal party procedures and brokers.

The state Democratic convention is set for June 5-7 in Austin. And the national convention is slated for Aug. 25-28 in Denver.

On Saturday in McAllen, each precinct was told their official tallies had to be written on a certain form; that was changed seconds later to "just write it on any sheet of paper, any piece of paper."

As the results were counted, frustrated attendees took the public microphone yelling at convention staff for being unorganized.

Delegates used the down time to throw accusations of voter fraud back and forth between the opposing Democratic supporters for presidential candidates U.S. Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Clinton delegates were adamant that some attendees who voted for Obama on Saturday should not have been allowed to cast a ballot because they were not at precinct caucuses March 4, when record turnout then also sparked chaos across the county.

But voters are allowed to just sign in at the precinct caucuses following the primary election and leave; even if they do not attend the caucuses, they can still be recommended to fill vacant delegate slots, Maldonado said.

By 8 p.m., several people were shouting for security as heated accusations started collecting a group of delegates from both sides of the campaign around the microphone.

There was no security in sight.

At one point, a delegate screamed at the top of her lungs turning her face pink: "We don't need this animosity! Stop it!"

‘Worth it'

By the end of the convention that night, Maldonado admitted his mistakes and said the event could have been better organized.

But its energy seemed to suit him just fine.

"I love it. It's exciting," he said. "Even people that get a little to over zealous, a little too excited, I understand it. I've been there."

He said his first mistake was announcing through the media that the convention would take about five hours. It took 12.

Alicia Varela, a 24-year-old Mission resident, was supposed to be at work by 2 p.m. She was written up because she refused to leave the convention until she cast her vote, she said.

Dolly Elizondo, who takes over as the county's Democratic chair at the end of April, sat on the 11-person credentials committee, which had to verify all of the delegates at the convention.

She said everyone finished signing in around 12:30 p.m. and the committee finalized the verification around 6 p.m. allowing for the delegates to finally cast their votes.

"The challenges were so numerous," she said. "We need to use technology to be more effective and more organized."

Tallies were announced shortly after 9 p.m. - Clinton took 100 delegates in Hidalgo County, Obama 12.

County Democratic Party officials are trying to verify the last delegate and expect to have a final decision on Monday, Maldonado said Sunday afternoon.

He did not know further details.

For those that stayed until the bitter end of the county convention on Saturday, they said that they would do it all over again - even if they knew it would last 12 hours.

"It's worth it," said 54-year-old Felipa T. Vega from San Juan. "Even though we are here hungry and there are a lot of people who don't know what is going on, it's a good way to see the magnitude of the Hispanic vote."

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Jackie Leatherman covers Hidalgo County government and general assignments at The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4424.