No I was not a judge in Cirro's precints.
I was a judge in Plano which is in Sam Johnson district. One of the most if not most conservative counties in Texas. Both the Dems and Republicans voted in this location
Some of my observations
There are committed passionate Democrats in Texas even in Plano. Figures by our Democratic county chair put us at 68k strong in the county
Republicans come to vote at much higher levels. In my county I and others observed a ~ 9 to 1 ratio of Republicans vs democrats.
Losing sucks but not having a Democrat to vote for sucks more.
Republicans did their homework. MANY came with LISTS of candidates to vote for even in the primary! These lists were usually preprinted lists from some organization. My guess is they came from their church.
Democrats had no preprinted lists! I observed one handwritten list.
Democrat voters asked us where were the ads for the Democrats. Since I am an activist I know that our candidates are on shoestring budgets and cannot afford some of the most basic supplies for running a campaign.
The National Democratic Party is completely absent in the Dallas Metroplex. Even though it has a huge national constituency in this area.
Democratic GOTV efforts are pathetic in Texas. Blockwalking and phonebanking is the current approach. It is not effective for the Democrats or the Republicans.
Republicans use large and small conservative churches to keep their base active. Democrats have no equivalent. This matters because right from the start we are playing catchup.
Voting is complicated and it takes alot of effort to learn about the candidates. Lots of candidates to choose from and people of both parties are likely to vote on name recognition or on a friends recomendation EVEN IF THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE CANDIDATE
There are alot of Democratic groups that are active but not coordinating their efforts. DFA, Texas Democratic Party, College Democrats, Woman Democrats etc... With limited resource this KILLS us.
These are some of the issues that we are dealing with in Texas. I don't think they are particulary unique to Texas.