Should the Washington Primary count?

[skipos]

Poll question: Should the Washington Primary count?

Voters choosing to vote in the WA Dem primary were told by the DNC that their vote would not count toward the allocation of delegates.
About 520,000 voters voted in the primary.

Voters choosing to vote in the MI Dem primary were told by the DNC that their vote would not count toward the allocation of delegates.
About 595,000 voters voted in the primary.

Some people think the current MI votes should count toward the allocation of delegates, despite what the voters were told.

Should the current WA primary votes count toward the allocation of delegates, despite what the voters were told by the DNC?

(Personally, I don't think it is acceptable to tell voters that their vote won't count towards delegates, have an election, and then tell them their vote now counts towards delegates. But hey, that's just the opinion of one MI voter.)

[tekisui]

1. Their caucus votes decided their delegates.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. As Tekisui said, the caucuses determined the delegates

Personally, I think Washington should just abolish the vast waste of time and money that is our primary. The parties have fought long and hard to be the ones to pick their candidates, even to the point of destroying our blanket primary system which had stood for more than 70 years. They want sole control of who gets to run as a candidate under their banner? Fine. Let them pay the damned bills and leave us tax payers alone.

[skipos]

3. I know about the caucuses

However, wouldn't some DUers argue that if we don't give those WA primary voters delegates, that we are disenfranchising them?

[TheDoorbellRang]

4. The state of Washington mandates the state primary in addition to the caucus, not the DNC

Each state can set up it's own system: open or closed primary; primary or caucus or both. I'm not even sure why WA has a primary, but it is WA that says the primary votes are meaningless, not the DNC.

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Here is a FAQ of the Washington primary

This is one of the documents the office of the Secretary of State prepared to explain things.

http://secstate.wa.gov/elections/pdf/2008PP/PP%20MFQ%20Updated%20August%202007%20Final.pdf

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. Arguing something doesn't make it true

The Supreme Court has held that political parties are private organizations with rights of free assembly and free association; that was the basis for overturning our blanket primary. Ever since Washington had a primary, the state Democratic Party has held that it illegally violates their rights and so has never -- not once -- ever used the primary to determine the make-up of the state delegation to the National Convention. That the state holds a primary is irrelevant, and personally I have to agree with the Supreme Court on this one.

The state party makes it clear that the election is worthless, every news channel for two weeks before the election stated clearly that the Democratic Party would not be selecting delegates based on the primary results (the state GOP selects 49% of their delegation based on the primary), our Secretary of State makes it clear that the election is worthless -- in fact, his office spent nearly a million dollars sending out flyers alerting voters to this fact, yet another colossal waste of resources. If voters who picked the Democratic ballot and voted in the primary were not aware that their vote was irrelevant, it was because they were deliberately refusing to pay attention. That is not disenfranchisement; that is ignorance.

[skipos]

7. You realize that this statement applies the MI as well, correct?

"If voters who picked the Democratic ballot and voted in the primary were not aware that their vote was irrelevant, it was because they were deliberately refusing to pay attention. That is not disenfranchisement; that is ignorance."