The compensation for the caucus rigmarole, Nieto added, is an energized voting base that could put Texas into play in the fall presidential election and, in any case, may help Democrats down the ballot. "It's testing the candidates in a different way, and it helps to fire up the local activists ... I think there's some value to a mixed system. Primaries are too often dominated by people who shouldn't dominate them — press and public relations people. Even the candidates themselves often seek to stack the deck in whatever way they can. This is a way of moving away from that." Across Harris County's 874 Democratic precincts, many of the volunteers and local election officials praised the current convention system as the core of democracy. Full Article at Houston Chronicle