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[lednerg]

That's evolution, not revolution. I don't see uprisings or protests going on. It's just people voting differently, which has happened before and will happen again.

I just said we possibly had the most arrests for civil disobedience in DC yesterday. Hundreds were taken in, so many that they literally ran out of space. You not seeing it just means you weren't on Twitter while #DemocracySpring was trending, I guess. Commercial US media didn't cover it, not that I'd expect them to.

 

[Zipzo]

They didn't.

[Then someone asks how someone with a larger % of the vote can tie in "regular" delegates]

[You then explain the math posted]

[Person then asks if this makes any actual conceptual sense]

Why don't we just skip to the last part...

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Not for things like presidential elections. The votes are not weighed based on which province they come from, nor are there any 'intermediary' voters. Also, you don't have to register for a specific party to vote for their candidate, which I never thought made sense anyway.

any registered voter can vote for any candidate in the general election in the U.S.

Can you guys at least do a quick Wikipedia read before bestowing us with your American electoral system expertise

 

[neurosisxeno]

Umm yes?

Who controls literally everything but the White House right now?

Also +2 and +8 are hardly the big changes Sanders needs so yes down ticket is important, also who do you think helped get those +2 and +8s... Obama and the DNC.

Were you asleep for 2010, 2012, and 2014? The DNC had every candidate run away from Obama. It was literally "paint the Democrat as Obama!" ads across every seat that was up for grabs, and the Republicans cleaned house on Mid-Term years, when Obama wasn't on the Ticket. If the Democrats want to control the White House and have a majority in Congress, they need to start showing up during Mid-Terms rather than hemorrhaging seats.

 

[Suikoguy]

[Then someone asks how someone with a larger % of the vote can tie in "regular" delegates]

[You then explain the math posted]

[Person then asks if this makes any actual conceptual sense]

Why don't we just skip to the last part...

You must be really difficult with teachers at school.
It's a very similar process by which grade letters are assigned.

 

[Regulus Tera]

The entire voting system in the US is full of turns and twists to ensure popular vote matters little in one way or the other. It doesn't surprise me.

 

[TheAutomator]

You must be really difficult with teachers at school.
It's a very similar process by which grade letters are assigned.

And that process is flawed. It does not show Bernie's lead adequately.

 

[Y2Kev]

The entire voting system in the US is full of turns and twists to ensure popular vote matters little in one way or the other. It doesn't surprise me.

Well, I mean, in the general election the popular vote matters a lot...it determines the electoral vote allocation on a state by state basis!

 

[Zipzo]

You must be really difficult with teachers at school.
It's a very similar process by which grade letters are assigned.

Haha, school was quite some time ago.

It's really not very similar though. You're highly over simplifying it.

 

[giga]

And that process is flawed. It does not show Bernie's lead adequately.

Would you prefer to do it by the popular vote, where Bernie is losing even more to Hillary?

 

[mclem]

Even in 2012 the Democrats gained 8 house seats. The loses in the House and Senate have nothing to do with General Elections, and everything to do with Democrats not showing up for Mid-Terms. 2010 and 2014 were massive losses in the House and Senate for Democrats--along with historically low turn-out.

But flipping one extra seat in 2016 means you need one fewer seat in 2018 to maintain control.

Poor voting in the midterms is a problem, but overperforming in the general reduces the impact of that problem.

Every seat matters.

 

[Gotchaye]

[Then someone asks how someone with a larger % of the vote can tie in "regular" delegates]

[You then explain the math posted]

[Person then asks if this makes any actual conceptual sense]

Why don't we just skip to the last part...

Conceptually this is pretty obvious isn't it? When you're having to transform a really granular popular vote into a relatively small number of representative votes you're going to have to do some rounding. When different voting districts should be assigned different numbers of representative votes you're probably going to end up with even numbers of representative votes in some of those districts (and regardless it is not obvious that you should aim to have odd numbers). Then when you try to allocate the representative votes according to the popular vote preference in an intuitively error-minimizing way you will almost always be giving disproportionately more of the vote to one of the preferences. For an even number of representative votes this means you're going to be splitting representative votes evenly for near-ties in the popular vote even though one preference got more votes.

You can make this less of an issue by having a large number of representative votes. This is what the Democrats have done. This is only a significant effect in contests where tiny numbers of delegates are at stake. Like, note that worst-case Sanders got screwed out of about 0.02% of the possible vote at the convention.

 

[Suikoguy]

And that process is flawed. It does not show Bernie's lead adequately.

How can you show it without using half delegates?

There are only 14 Delegates at stake in WY.

 

[anonymous_abc]

People trying to paint this as something that is just as bad everywhere else where parties select their candidates there are two very big differences.

a) Elsewhere there is no pretence of trying to sell it as more democratic than it is.
b) There is no year long media circus that surrounds it. For the most part the parties hold one conference with delegates from all over the place who then elect the party leader as candidate.

 

[frankie_baby]

The whole system just seems ridiculous, why not just have one simple ballot of party members, most votes wins the nomination

 

[E-Cat]

any registered voter can vote for any candidate in the general election in the U.S.

Can you guys at least do a quick Wikipedia read before bestowing us with your American electoral system expertise

So, why do you have to to register to vote?

 

[massoluk]

And that process is flawed. It does not show Bernie's lead adequately.

I agree, it overestimates his popularity considering the fuzz over these 4 delegates.

 

[TheAutomator]

How can you show it without using half delegates?

There are only 14 Delegates at stake in WY.

So? Give 8 to Bernie.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

So? Give 8 to Bernie.

Why? He didn't hit the threshold to get 8. You want to give him a delegate he didn't earn and not give Hillary a delegate she earned?

 

[Suikoguy]

So? Give 8 to Bernie.

So, are we giving out delegates based on how we feel?
Kinda like how a teacher will sometimes give an A to a student who got a 89.2 on something?

 

[metalslimer]

After the bullshit that happened with Nevada I'm surprised people didn't freak out over that one. Bernie is being crushed in the popular vote as well so I'm not sure what's the issue here.

 

[ClosingADoor]

I just said we possibly had the most arrests for civil disobedience in DC yesterday. Hundreds were taken in, so many that they literally ran out of space. You not seeing it just means you weren't on Twitter while #DemocracySpring was trending, I guess. Commercial US media didn't cover it, not that I'd expect them to.

I wouldn't call a one off event with a few hundred people and a trending hashtag on Twitter a revolution.

 

[Clefargle]

So, you're saying it's ok because it just happens to be that the two align?

I'm also not only talking about the primaries, the electoral college cockblocked Al Gore's win in 2000 even though he had the majority of the popular vote.

They've always aligned as far as the primaries go. And stop conflating these private primary rules with actual Undemocratic federal election rules. If you have s problem with the electoral college fine, so do I. But that isn't what this is.

 

[Crocodile]

I hope people take the time to read the math and explanations that have been provided in this thread. It's really depressing to see so many people unaware of how and why these nominating processes work and its also unfortunate to see so many inconsistent arguments (if your main concern is "what about democracy!" you kind of have to be critical of caucuses as well which just so happen to represent the majority of Sander's victories).

None of it will matter if he doesn't get the nomination, so focusing on helping a bunch of downticket races during the primaries is pretty pointless for his Campaign as well. Plus, as I said, even in 2012 the Democrats made Congressional gains. Generals favor Democrats.

Er it kind of matters a lot if he wants the country to try to move in the direction he wants.

 

[TheAutomator]

So, are we giving out delegates based on how we feel?
Kinda like how a teacher will sometimes give an A to a student who got a 89.2 on something?

Why round the numbers and erase Bernie's lead? Just add them up and you'll get 8 to 6. There you go much more accurate and problem solved.

 

[zou]

People trying to paint this as something that is just as bad everywhere else where parties select their candidates there are two very big differences.

a) Elsewhere there is no pretence of trying to sell it as more democratic than it is.
b) There is no year long media circus that surrounds it. For the most part the parties hold one conference with delegates from all over the place who then elect the party leader as candidate.

I mean it is a fact that the process is more democratic than in let's say Germany.

 

[Zipzo]

Why? He didn't hit the threshold to get 8. You want to give him a delegate he didn't earn and not give Hillary a delegate she earned?

Can you only think within the constraints of what the system deems is fair or can you, for one second, look at this from a broad perspective why some people might have an issue with how the vote played out delegate-wise? It's not about disapproving of math.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Sanders has also won just 42% of the vote but has 47% of the delegates.

I don't see anybody complaining about that.

 

[metalslimer]

I also have to laugh considering Bernies biggest strength have been caucuses which are the most undemocratic part of all during the primaries. The only thing this tells me is that people either don't follow politics at all, or are just being hypocrites

 

[ClosingADoor]

Can you only think within the constraints of what the system deems is fair or can you, for one second, look at this from a broad perspective why some people might have an issue with how the vote played out delegate-wise? It's not about disapproving of math.

If it's about what is fair, then Hillary should have more delegates judging from the numbers in this thread.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

My vote is going to the candidate that will make the country so bad that there is no choice other than action.

You're going to look back on this in a few years and feel embarrassed.

 

[Clefargle]

I also have to laugh considering Bernies biggest strength have been caucuses which are the most undemocratic part of all during the primaries. The only thing this tells me is that people either don't follow politics at all, or are just being hypocrites

Why not both?! The Sanders supporters on Reddit sure do display both.

 

[Zipzo]

Are any of his caucus victories similar to this in that Hillary still benefitted the most despite him winning? I think that's the primary thing of note in this story.

 

[Clefargle]

It'd be hard for him to argue the Democratic party should change it's system pre running for their nominee as President as you know he wasn't actually in the party at that time.

Exactly, so he should have become a democrat a few years back if he wanted to change these things, but instead he waited until 2015 for reasons.

 

[airmangataosenai]

I like how people complain about this while ignoring that Sanders "won" the majority of the PLEDGED delegates in the Nevada caucus despite losing the actual vote. But hey, the system is rigged right?

 

[metalslimer]

Are any of his caucus victories similar to this in that Hillary still benefitted the most despite him winning? I think that's the primary thing of note in this story.

No it's worse. He got more delegates in Nevada while LOSING

By no metric is Bernie even close in this race so I truly don't understand the freaking out this time.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I like how people complain about this while ignoring that Sanders "won" the majority of the PLEDGED delegates in the Nevada caucus despite losing the actual vote. But hey, the system is rigged right?

Only when it negatively affects my candidate.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Are any of his caucus victories similar to this in that Hillary still benefitted the most despite him winning? I think that's the primary thing of note in this story.

No, in fact the caucuses have allowed Sanders to win more % of delegates overall compared to his overall view margin.

Sanders has 45-47% of delegates allocated won compared to just winning 41-42% of the vote.

 

[TheAutomator]

I like how people complain about this while ignoring that Sanders "won" the majority of the PLEDGED delegates in the Nevada caucus despite losing the actual vote. But hey, the system is rigged right?

I admit, I don't follow politics very closely. As long as they fix the whole rounding numbers bullshit then so be it. Bernie loses Nevada.

 

[noshten]

Guys chill supers will start flipping if Sanders wins NY

 

[Bubblicious]

Would you prefer to do it by the popular vote, where Bernie is losing even more to Hillary?

I feel like some Sanders supporters are out of touch with reality sometimes! The numbers are there for all to see and it's clear who's winning:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_vote_count.html

 

[Clefargle]

Are any of his caucus victories similar to this in that Hillary still benefitted the most despite him winning? I think that's the primary thing of note in this story.

If anything caucuses are more restrictive and Undemocratic than the primary model so I fail to see how this helps his case.

 

[Kinyou]

A president will have one or two terms, Supreme Court appointment is for life. Think about that.

Lifetime appointment has always been a bit insane to me. Perhaps it's time to change that

 

[Slayven]

caucuses, where you are locked in a room and browbeaten until you vote "the right way". That shit is undemocratic

 

[cartoon_soldier]

No it's worse. He got more delegates in Nevada while LOSING

By no metric is Bernie even close in this race so I truly don't understand the freaking out this time.

Murdering democracy is fine when it suits Sanders dude.

 

[lednerg]

I wouldn't call a one off event with a few hundred people and a trending hashtag on Twitter a revolution.

OWS, BLM, LGBT rights, #FightFor15, Anti-Fracking, etc. If you call yourself a Democrat yet can't see the obvious connections between these things, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[flkraven]

Yah caucuses are fucked as it is, regardless of how the delegates split.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Lifetime appointment has always been a bit insane to me. Perhaps it's time to change that

How?

 

[ClosingADoor]

Lifetime appointment has always been a bit insane to me. Perhaps it's time to change that

You don't want to do that for judges, since they should be independent. Having terms will have them worry about reelection and can impact their votes.

OWS, BLM, #FightFor15, Anti-Fracking, etc. If you call yourself a Democrat yet don't see the obvious connections between these things, then I don't know what to tell you.

I'm not even American, so I don't call myself anything. Sure, some groups are protesting. But that is hardly a revolution. A few hundred people showing up with a banner is not a revolution, it is a small protest. When you have a 100.000 people flooding the streets demanding politicians resign over their bullshit, then you have a revolution.

This is your Democracy Sping revolution:

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Why round the numbers and erase Bernie's lead? Just add them up and you'll get 8 to 6. There you go much more accurate and problem solved.

Because it's been explained that it doesn't work like that, and it's not going to suddenly work that way just because it nets the candidate you favor one delegate. Sorry.