Even if you try to read the four-page document about the caucus and voting process in Texas this coming Tuesday, you still won’t completely understand.  No one has bothered to learn it in the past because frankly, Texas is usually late enough in the game to make the state worthless in choosing the nominee.

Most of the delegates are earned through the primary vote, the rest from the caucuses are based on who showed up to vote.  Texas is large enough to have 193 delegates, those being dived up between a primary and a caucus.  67 of these delegates are “caucus-chosen.”

Because the contest in Texas is so late in the primary season, Texas has not had such a highly contested race since 1988.  This year is obviously different and it has people paying attention to the way it really works in Texas and how far or unfair you may perceive the allocation of delegates.

The process in Texas is just so confusing; you practically need a political science professor to navigate it for you. The number of delegates varies according to previous Democratic turnout in the past two general elections, unlike most states.  Also voters do not register for a party.

For the GOP, the system is simple.  Mike Huckabee and John McCain will vie for the same amount of delegates in each of the 32 congressional districts.  Chuck Norris is still planning on “delivering” Texas to Huckabee.

The setup benefits Barack Obama far more than it does Hillary Clinton.  There is a far greater turn out historically in the areas where Obama is expected to do well, in primarily black districts and major cities.  Latino voters, Clinton’s base in Texas, have low voting records.  That translates to fewer delegates for Clinton even if she does well and she is already facing low expectations and odds.  The latest polls have Obama with a four point lead.  The Clinton campaign says that they are also expecting to do well in the bigger cities in Texas, “We have a lot of support of elected officials in big cities,” said Kamyl Bazbaz, Hillary’s press secretary at the Austin headquarters.

The majority of Americans now think that Obama will be the nominee.  Just a few days ago, it was reported that a major superdelegate changed his vote and switched his support over to Obama.

There has been very good turnout in the primarily African American neighborhoods.  In national contests on average Obama has been winning 80% of the African American vote.  By comparison, Brownville, a city on the Mexican border has only 7 delegates and on a national average Clinton is getting the majority of the Latino vote.

The part that’s really confusing for the Democrat’s process is that 42 at-large delegates are not awarded until the national convention.  In addition to this, there are 35 superdelegates with an additional 25 delegates already pledged to the party and elected-official delegates.  That leaves 193 delegates allocated according to both the caucus and primary.

The only way either candidate will be rewarded in Texas is if they have organized enough to get their supporters on the grassroots level to both go to the polls and caucus.  After all these confusing rules and different ways to score delegate points, the ultimate total for Texas is 228 a huge number to vie and is the reason for all the commotion about this crazy system.