January 20, 2008

  • Unfortunately, there was no "popular vote" recorded in the Nevada
    caucuses    , although this has been misrepresented by most news
    reports I've seen. The 51%-45% result in the Democratic primary is the percentage
    of precinct caucus delegates won by either candidate. The actual
    percentage of the popular vote is not clearly represented by this
    figure, as the number of precinct caucus delegates are pre-assigned based on the number of democratic registered voters in each precinct
    (except for the at-large caucus sites, which are calculated by a
    complex formula).

    Thus
    the point the Obama campaign is making about the 13-12 state delegate
    tally is not a trivial one. The 51%-45% "victory" by the Clinton
    campaign does not represent the popular vote. Therefore, why should it
    have more legitimacy that the 13-12 state delegate tally?

    (I
    would personally like all caucus delegate math changed so that caucus
    delegates for each precinct are assigned based on the number of caucus
    attendees (while retaining the viability rule, perhaps reduced to 10%) but
    that's a different topic.)