Republican Party of Texas (RPT) Delegate

Bill and his wife Nancy were honored to be delegates to the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) State Convention representing Congressional District 32 and Senate District 16.

Due to last-minute politics played by the Democratic mayor of the City of Houston (our host site) forcing the cancelation of the RTP's contract with Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center, the RPT only had a few days to switch from a physical convention (in planning for several years) to a virtual online convention. While the convention was in progress, the RPT and its allied parties to the resulting lawsuit prevailed on appeal but it was too late to move the convention back to the convention center. The RPT was facing a hard deadline for the Monday after the scheduled convention dates to make our Presidential electors official (requiring official voting of the party delegates) and we had no time to reschedule to another date lest we were to be disenfranchised from electing a United States President.

Such a rapid last-minute change was one heck of a task considering that the Republican Party of Texas is the largest political convention in the world, far large than even the national conventions of either party.

There were many issues, both technical and human, but we got through them all. The vast majority of delegates were credentialed and authenticated for secure online access so we could securely conduct the business of the party by Sunday. Despite some 20-hour convention days and a great deal of frustration, we pulled it off and were stronger and more resolved to succeed in our mission by the experience.

I will write more about this experience later.