Clinton wins ALL 6 (SIX) precinct coin flips -- Odds: 1 in 64 (1.56%) (EDITED SEE BELOW)

[JonLeibowitz]

In a handful of Democratic caucus precincts Monday, a delegate was awarded with a coin toss.

It happened in precinct 2-4 in Ames, where supporters of candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton disputed the results after 60 caucus participants apparently disappeared from the proceedings.

...

Similar situations were reported elsewhere, including at a precinct in Des Moines, at another precinct in Des Moines, in Newton, in West Branch and in Davenport. In all five situations, Clinton won the toss.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/02/02/sometimes-iowa-democrats-award-caucus-delegates-coin-flip/79680342/

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EDIT: https://twitter.com/instamom1970/status/694345032183238656

Make that odds of 6/7. Which is still pretty lucky for Clinton. 5.5% by my calculations.

[MADem]

1. Here's a Bernie supporter announcing the results of one of them.....

https://twitter.com/FernandoPeinado/status/694345745420320768

[JonLeibowitz]

2. Yep saw that earlier in the evening but lost the link. Thanks! n/t

[pnwmom]

42. I've been warning everyone that caucuses are messy and frustrating.

Maybe more people will realize that now. I wish my state would switch to a primary.

[valerief]

3. Actually, each toss has a 50/50 chance. You can't aggregate them.

But it's bizarre they give all the votes to HRC in these instances and don't share some of the tosses with Bernie, especially since he got just as many votes at each precinct with these tosses.

[Howler]

4. Ooooooooo!

This is bullshit and election fraud!

[joshcryer]

6. Like a Redditor said, "caucuses are Calvinball."

[valerief]

8. I had to look that up, but, yeah, that's right. Seems to be the case for the whole presidential

race, too.

[JonLeibowitz]

10. No, you CAN calculate the odds of that happening. I'm not aggregating, I'm multiplying odds

of what are called independent and identically distributed events of probability.

[valerief]

11. Okay, thanks.

[Live and Learn]

12. +10,000 nt

[MADem]

21. Each person is assigned heads or tails--it's the luck of the draw.

If people have left, and they can't re-count them, they have to do something and this is how they resolve it.

Luck was with HRC. That's life.

How do you "share" a toss? Heads Sanders, Tails Clinton. Flip. Tails. Clinton wins.

Why would they "give" it to Sanders if their process calls for a coin toss?

Makes no sense.

What they really should do is eliminate Iowa as a first-in-the-nation contest. It's long, grinding, boring and frankly, pointless. The candidates spend way too much time there (and in NH, too), kissing ass, and the caucus system in IA is IDIOTIC--the Democrats are much more idiotic than the GOP, who just vote.

They'd do well to pick a different mid-sized state every election year, and let us see a different part of the country for a change. I'm sick of the Iowa State Fair shots. And the downtown Manchester stand ups in front of the Raddisson!

Standing around in a room having to tell people who you support is a real reason why the turnout at those things sucks--aside from the exclusion of shift workers and service workers. I think they got twelve percent this year, and they were proud of themselves. That's just awful.

Of course, these states know these stupid things are worth BILLIONS to them in revenue--that's why they snarl like cornered cheetahs when anyone suggests that someone else get a shot at it.

[pnwmom]

47. I've been telling people how idiotic caucuses are, because my state has them, too.

And why are our two bellwether states small, rural, and heavily white?

Maybe this has opened some eyes.

[MADem]

56. I always thought that IA and NH were set up to narrow the GOP field.

It's a very male-centric, caucasian process with lots of pandering to religious elements.

Doing well in those states really is no guarantee for our nominee, but it is a useful win for the Republicans.

[ladjf]

34. The odds of 6 consequtive repeats of two headed coin are 1 in 64. nt

[valerief]

36. Thanks. The OP corrected me. nt

[ladjf]

38. Check the odds on rolling a twelve in dice just one time.

Ans. 1 in 16.

[MADem]

57. But it wasn't the same coin, and it wasn't "consecutive" tosses.

It was one coin at one site tossed once. And this scenario was repeated at other sites, with different coins.

Apparently, per the news right now, Sanders also won a few coin tosses.

[karynnj]

39. you can compute the probability of them all going to Clinton

It is (1/2) ** n where n is the number of tosses. If there are 6, it is 1/64 as the op said.

[valerief]

53. Thanks. I've been corrected. nt

[pnwmom]

43. Almost everything about caucuses is bizarre. I've been trying to warn people,

because we have them in my state.

Not inclusive -- leave out people who are traveling, ill, or who work during that time
Not one-person, one-vote.
No secret ballot.
Delegates aren't awarded proportionately to numbers of votes

But the coin flipping was new for me.

[CajunBlazer]

64. But isn't the most enthusastic campaign supposed to win big time?

[pnwmom]

69. Not in Iowa. Its rules are basically designed to level out the differences.

For example, in a 2 delegate precinct, if one candidate gets 25% of the voters, and the other gets 75% -- they both get 1 of the delegates.

So one person could win "big time" and we might never know it, because they don't report individual vote counts.

Everyone should hate caucuses -- not just in Iowa. They should be replaced by primaries everywhere.

[Live and Learn]

5. Okay 6? This is getting ridiculous. nt

[valerief]

7. 6 so far. It may be even more. All to HRC, of course. nt

[MADem]

58. That's not what they're reporting at MSNBC. Some tosses went to Sanders.

Most, if not all, were recorded on cellphones, too.

[valerief]

60. Please note the time I made the post and the the time you responded. nt

[cui bono]

9. That's bullshit.

How long have they used this advanced coin toss method?

Why don't they wait and see how many ties there are and then split them?

BERNIE. BECAUSE FUCK THIS SHIT!!!

.

[Live and Learn]

14. I suggest they at least be forced to stay and come to a consensus like our jury system. nt

[amborin]

16. agree; to be equitable, they should at least divvy them up

[pnwmom]

44. They can't. The system isn't proportional. There is a set number of delegates

for each precinct based on how many people have voted there IN THE PAST.

So some small county may only have 2 delegates. If you have at least 25% of the votes, you WILL get one of the delegates. So if one person has 25% and the other has 75%, they both get ONE delegate.

[newthinking]

40. The rules were not made to be completely neutral

Which has nothing to do with Clinton or this campaign. But it is kind of eye opening isn't it.

If they wanted to design a system that was truly and completely democratic it would not have mechanisms like this and definitely would not have "superdelegates" etc. But then we never really have had a fully "Democratic" system.

It will take more than 51 or 52% for Bernie to win nationally. We will have to end up with a large enough majority that all the various games and distortions will be too difficult to use politically.

[pnwmom]

45. I've been trying to explain how stupid the system was, but people assumed

I was only complaining because I favor Hillary.

No, I have hated caucuses ever since I went to my first one, back in the previous century. They are one of the circles of hell.

[Recursion]

46. Their one advantage is that they reward off-year party-building work

Though I definitely don't think it's worth the hassle, and I think this is an inauspicious start to the campaign season.

[MADem]

70. I've always said it was a stupid system.

It disenfranchises shift workers, parents of young children, people without reliable transportation, those who live in bad neighborhoods and are afraid to be out after dark, people who can't drive at night...the list goes on.

If you work or go to school nine to five, no biggie. But if you have "a life" that is busy and complicated, you might not have time to give up an entire evening to play Musical Chairs.

[TeamPooka]

13. Math is hard. But that's not how coin flip odds work. nt

[JonLeibowitz]

15. No, that's exactly how coin flip odds work. Please show your proof of an alternative explanation.n/t

[PowerToThePeople]

22. Truth.

But, as they said, "math is hard." I take them at their word that math is indeed hard for them.

[JonLeibowitz]

23. I studied math in college, so I better know how this works :)

[PowerToThePeople]

24. I was not a math major

Just an engineering student.

[JonLeibowitz]

26. Heck, high schoolers should be able to figure this one out. n/t

[TeamPooka]

41. You're mistake is believing random, unconnected events are somehow connected because of math. nt

[JonLeibowitz]

48. No, your mistake is believe random, unconnected events somehow become connected.

I specifically assume that they are independent. Your failure to understand the math reflects on your mathematics skills, not on reality. Everyone else in this thread recognizes that the mathematics is correct.

[Live and Learn]

19. I suggest you do the experiment yourself and see how many times you can get heads in a row. nt

[MADem]

28. They didn't do it all at the same place by the same person.

These were individual events.

https://twitter.com/FernandoPeinado/status/694345745420320768

[Live and Learn]

29. The odds don't change based on precincts or persons. nt

[Jarqui]

17. If she had to win 6 coin tosses to match him or 1 up him in delegates

then it likely Bernie got more votes

[Lodestar]

18. Must be trick...

How to Win a Coin Toss
http://www.wired.com/2010/11/st_cheatscience_cointoss/

[MADem]

27. They don't flip it into their HAND. It lands on the floor.

https://twitter.com/FernandoPeinado/status/694345745420320768

[Lodestar]

31. Should have used the sarcasm smilie...I guess my humor is out of place

here.

[MADem]

32. If you were goofing, then it was funny...but believe me, there are people who will be convinced

that (even though this flip https://twitter.com/FernandoPeinado/status/694345745420320768 was apparently overseen by a Sanders supporter) Clinton supporters must have attended secret coin flipping classes to gain advantage!

[Lodestar]

35. Well I find humor in the whole dem caucus process...a circus

so a trick coin toss seemed to fit right in. It certainly seems vulnerable to any number of
unintentional screw ups let alone for someone with less than honest intentions and slights
of hand that could easily take advantage of the chaos.

[newthinking]

33. Did you go to the second link? I learned something new.

Not saying that means anything nefarious happened. But it seems that coin tosses are not scientifically neutral if you know what to look for (the face that is up at the start is statistically more prone to win) or if you do the flipping.

[sabrina 1]

20. Wow, six, I thought three was bad enough. Three people disappeared from Des Moines also.

Bernie's side asked for a recount, a quick determined to decide a recount by raising hands. Decision not to recount.

Strange how in Des Moines it looked it was going to Bernie. Then suddenly it changed after undecideds and MOM supporters apparently went to Hillary.

[JonLeibowitz]

30. Polk County. Definitely suspicious events happening at the Roosevelt High School caucus site.

Luckily C SPAN caught it all on camera.

The Clinton precinct chair perjured herself on national TV. Classic!

[pnwmom]

49. It's not strange. Hillary's campaign workers spent a lot of time talking to MOM

supporters, to see if they would consider Hillary as a second choice. The article I read said Bernie's campaign didn't do this.

[yodermon]

25. Instant Runoff Voting or a Runoff Election would be fair.

Hard/impossible to do in a caucus scenario, i guess.

[John Poet]

37. The Devil Went Down to Iowa,

he was lookin' for some votes to steal...

[Hekate]

50. Luck. That's how I "won" grandma's cabinet instead of it going to my brother.

Boy was he steamed. In our case we 4 sibs were dividing our late mother's possessions. Tossing dice settled any disputed items (D&D rules). Two times he and I threw exactly the same. On the third round I won the toss.

What are the everloving odds? I never play games of chance.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but America has a history of periodically settling political and other public disputes by coin toss. It's legal and has plenty of precedent.

Tonight, Luck was with the Lady.

[Bernblu]

51. Did she win the caucus by more than 5 delegates?

If not, it means she won the caucus on coin flips!

[JonLeibowitz]

52. I believe she is leading by 3 delegates right now. nt

[PeaceNikki]

54. The coin tosses were for county delegates which are worth a fraction of a state delegate.

They didn't amount to much. Even in this tight of a race.

[MADem]

67. +1. People are getting the erroneous impression that this is a big deal when it isn't.

Also, MSNBC is reporting that Sanders won some coin tosses, too.

[MADem]

61. She has 29, Sanders has 21, Uncommitted has 2. But those "delegates" are not the same as

the delegates awarded by coin toss, as others have pointed out.

Further, Sanders apparently won some coin tosses, too, per MSNBC.

That narrative, though, isn't as hot-breathed or pained as the one that has Clinton's surrogates, with magic quarters, inserting themselves into the coin toss process with nefarious intent...

[JonLeibowitz]

62. Yes if you read my edited post you'd see i acknowledged the other flips.

It's even in all caps for the hard of seeing.

Superdelegates are very much up in the air right now. Don't try to pull establishment rank on the people -- we'll revolt.

[MADem]

66. This isn't about "superdelegates" either.

I think you're looking for a fight, though, and I'm not interested.

Those coin flips were not about awarded delegates (that 29 number v. Sanders' 21) nor are they about superdelegates.

Not sure what the whole "establishment rank" comment is even about. I left that word behind in the sixties. It has limited meaning and utility.

[JonLeibowitz]

68. Yes and this post is from last night before people knew the details of state delegates.

29-21 includes superdelegates which are not in any sense awarded at this point.

[PeaceNikki]

55. The coin tosses were for county delegates which are worth a fraction of a state delegate.

They didn't amount to much. Even in this tight of a race.

[MADem]

59. These coin tosses do not decide the "Big" delegate number. nt

[CajunBlazer]

63. Sander's would have still lost had the coin flips gone 50%-50%

So quit cursing the statistic gods.

But you know what, maybe the statistic gods are angry with the Sanders' supporters for mocking the polls.

Regardless, thrilled we won each and every flip.

[JonLeibowitz]

65. This post was made last night when nobody knew about county vs state delegates.

So please do not berate me for part of the historical record.