Democratic convention spawns confusion
BROWNSVILLE - Three women who said they were chosen as delegates to the Cameron County Democratic Convention said Thursday that their names don't appear on the list of delegates and they don't know if they're supposed to attend Saturday's convention in Brownsville.
"I haven't heard anything," said Amy Lynch of Harlingen, who said she was chosen as a Hillary Clinton delegate to the county convention after the March 4 primary election.
Sylvia Casares said she and her sister were also chosen as delegates but haven't been invited to Saturday's county convention.
Persons who believe they are delegates but who did not see their name on the party's Web site should attend the convention anyway, county Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said.
The Web site list isn't up to date, Hinojosa said, because incomplete information was returned by precinct committee chairmen after the March 4 caucuses that followed the primary election.
"The delegates that were submitted by the individual precinct caucuses .... everyone that was on that list has been sent an invitation," Hinojosa said. "In those caucuses where it is unclear, the credentials committee is going through the caucus list to try to determine who is a delegate, and who is not.
"Once they make that determination, those who are delegates will receive phone calls from the respective campaigns, whether it's a Hillary (Clinton) delegate or a (Barack) Obama delegate," Hinojosa said.
Party officials need to get complete information, he said.
"We're solely going by the names given to us by the individual precinct caucuses," he said. "If their (delegates) name does not appear in the delegate list submitted by the caucus chair, then that's not someone that we have on our list as a delegate. We can only go by whatever the precinct caucus chair gave us in the list of delegates that he or she submitted."
Lists of delegates are still being refined, Hinojosa said.
"The (Democratic Party's) credentials committee is trying to figure out who in fact would have been the delegates," he said. "One fourth to one third of the precinct caucuses did not give party officials a list of delegates. ... A lot of the precinct packets came trickling in a week to 10 days after the (March 4) primary election," he said.
Confusion over who is or is not a delegate will have to be straightened out on Saturday at the county convention that begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Jacob Brown Auditorium on International Boulevard in Brownsville, Hinojosa said.
The delegate list that is online is a state list, not a Cameron County list, Hinojosa said. "That's an old list."
Anyone who thinks he or she is a delegate needs to go to the convention on Saturday, he said.
"If they believe that they are delegates, they need to be there," Hinojosa said. "Then they will likely be seated."
