Why popular vote totals are irrelevant for the election ...

Altair

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Sun Mar-09-08 05:12 PM
Original message

Why popular vote totals are irrelevant for the election ...

If we are going to use the popular vote as the scorecard, then that means that the numerous states which have chosen to use caucuses as their party voting method will inevitably be disenfranchised. Caucuses inevitably have far fewer participants than primaries, but many states find it necessary to use them, in part because they are much less expensive or because the states are sparesely populated, as with Wyoming and Idaho.

But let's first look at New Hampshire and Maine- two very similar states geographically and population-wise.

New Hampshire population: appx. 1,300,000
Maine population: appx. 1,300,000

As it happens, Maine chose to have a caucus, while New Hampshire chose to have a primary. Each is a perfectly legitimate choice under the Democratic party's rules. No one even suggested to Maine that it was somehow a second-class state as a result of this decision. To the contrary, New Hampshire and Maine have a very similar number of delegates to offer- 22 in the case of New Hampshire and 24 in the case of Maine.

Now, let's compare the vote count in the New Hampshire primary with that in the Maine caucus on the Real Clear Politics popular vote tracker:

New Hampshire Obama 104,815 Clinton 112,404
Maine n/a

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

So on this particular scorecard, you've got New Hampshire weighing in at around 215,000 voters, while Maine shows nothing even though it had its caucus on February 10. Why? Because Maine didn't track the number of caucus participants - they just recorded the number of state convention delegates selected.

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/ME-D.phtml#0210

Obama won Maine 62% to 38%, which means that he had overwhelming support in the election method which was chosen by that state. And he was awarded delegates according. Now Hillary wants to step in and say "wait a minute- the popular vote is the real scorecard here." Try telling that to Maine because, if popular vote is the scorecard, then Maine doesn't count at all in determining our party's nominee. The same applies for the state of Washington- thanks for playing anyway, guys!

Even the states that do record the number of caucus participants are grossly underrepresented under the popular vote method. Look at Hawaii, for example, which has almost the same population as Maine and New Hampshire. Hawaii will be glad to see that, unlike Maine and Washington, it at least counts for something on Real Clear Politics' popular vote chart linked above:

Hawaii caucus: Obama 28,347 Clinton 8,835

So Hawaii, in a year with record turnout, counts to the tune of around 37,000 voters using the popular vote method. Recall that New Hampshire, with almost the same population as Hawaii, counted to the tune of around 215,000 voters. That means that, under Hillary's way of determining the leader of the free world, one Hawaiian counts about 1/6 as much as one New Hampshire resident. Tough break, Hawaii - guess we forgot to tell you that part when you selected what was supposedly one perfectly valid election method.

As we all know, Obama has racked up many of his victories in caucus states. That being the case, can any Hillary supporter honestly defend using popular vote as the scoring method for our party's nomination? I can hear them protesting: "But caucuses are undemocratic: Hillary supporters have to work or they don't know how to caucus." If caucuses are undemocratic, then they should be done away with by the party. But those weren't the rules going into this election, and caucuses have been used all throughout this nation's history.

I would add that the notion that caucuses inevitably inflate Obama's totals isn't necessarily true. Look at the Utah primary:

Obama 70,373 56.61%
Clinton 48,719 39.19%

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/UT-D.phtml#0205

Those are very similar numbers to what we saw in the Wyoming caucus yesterday, when Hillary bothered to compete.

I don't deny that Obama has benefitted from caucuses, but this benefit comes from entirely legitimate factors, most notably the enthusiasm of his supporters. Enthusiastic supporters are important to a party's nominee because these supporters don't just vote- they get out and organize and canvass and send in donations. Those are the kinds of supporters the Democratic party needs in November.

But regardless, Obama's advantage among caucuses doesn't need to be defended, because it's an advantage he has regarding an election method that is an established part of the rules. The bottom line is that the delegate assignment process is the means by which the Democratic party has chosen to make caucus and primary states on equal footing for the purpose of determining our nominee. If you take away the delegate count as the scorecard, then you basically assign 1/4 of the nation to irrelevance in determining our nominee.

So I hope the press will pick up on this fact when Hillary starts trying to spin her closeness in the popular vote total- it's very important that the public understand this by the time the superdelegates make a decision.