Senator Clinton said recently that she would take the Michigan/Florida delegate fight to the convention..."that's what the credentials committee is for" she said recently.
Here's how she used/misused the credentials committee in Texas Senate District 13...Houston, Texas, at the Texas Southern University Convention yesterday.
First some background.
In Harris County, Texas, one can early vote at any early voting location in the county.
On election day, however, one must vote in the precinct where one is registered even if one has recently moved out of that precinct.
The voting procedure is pretty simple. On election day, the voter shows up in the precinct in which they are registered and presents a voter registration card or some other approved form of ID, like a drivers license or utility bill.
If the person is in the "book" (the alphabetical list of voters registered in that precinct) then one is allowed to vote. (There are procedures to follow if one isn't in the book to check on where one can vote.)
If the person is "in the book" - registered to vote in that precinct - they sign in on the signature line beside their name and are asked if they still live at the address below their name. NOW THE IMPORTANT PART...if they say they now live at a new address, they are given a "Statement of Residence" form that they must fill out before they vote. This form is checked by the election judge and then returned to Harris County so that the voter will be registered in their new precinct and sent a new voter registration card with their current address and current precinct to be used in the next election.
In the March 4th Texas primary, we must have had 50 such voters who were registered in our precinct but had since moved and had to fill out a Statement of Residence form that showed their new address. As long as they had moved within Harris County they were eligible to vote where they were currently registered. And that's the only place they were eligible to vote.
So one has no choice but to vote in one's old precinct where one used to live and where one was still registered at election time and to fill out a "Statement of Residence" form showing the new address and new precinct.
Nevertheless, the Clinton campaign viewed that as an opportunity to challenge delegates in Texas Senate District 13 who were still registered in one precinct, had moved to a different precinct but had not yet had their voter registration information updated by Harris County to their new address. These voters (delegates) followed the rules...voted where they were registered and filled in the required Statement of Residence form...
nevertheless, they were challenged by Clinton as not living in the precinct in which they voted even though they had no choice by Harris County rules to do as they did.
That was a frivolous challenge which wasted a lot of time yesterday and caused much concern among those who thought they might unfairly be disenfranchised.
Those frivolous challenges were overturned by the credentials committee.
There were other challenges to delegates yesterday in our Senate District. About 10 challenges in different precincts...all by the Clinton campaign against Obama delegates. All were overturned by votes on the floor. All took hours of work for the credentials committee and floor votes.
Senator Clinton apparently means it when she says "that's what credential committees are for". Yesterday the credentials committee was misused IMO to bring what I viewed as frivolous charges as demonstrated by the "statement of residence" forms challenge. Fortunately, people were so committed to seeing the process through that we endured the hours of waiting, which ultimately failed to produce the hoped for shift in delegates to the Clinton camp. But it became clear that the merits of a challenge don't seem to concern the Clinton camp as much as winning at any cost to the process.
At some point one has to wonder whether the Clintons view this campaign as all about what's good for the Clintons instead of what's good for the process, the voters and the country.