Sanders wins Wyoming Caucus; ties pledged delegates; math; rules :(

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Zipzo

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In what several sources (New York Post, MSNBC) are calling a "rigged" system Bernie Sanders triumphed at the Wyoming caucus, but still came out the loser anyway.

The following count includes the 4 super delegates who pledged their vote to HRC.

Delegate Count

Sanders - 7
Clinton - 11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGeyhgp2N8A

Skip to 2:25 for the starting point of what becomes a bit of rant on the issue on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe'. 'The Salon' does a good write-up of his words.

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/11/joe...e_race_is_already_rigged_for_hillary_clinton/

“I’m sorry, that’s a crushing victory,” Scarborough began, before launching into a rant about how Wyoming allots its delegates.

“Bernie Sanders won Wyoming by 12 percent, but he might not even pick up a single delegate. Hillary Clinton was awarded 11 delegates, Bernie Sanders only seven,” Scarborough said. “Why does the Democratic Party even have voting booths? This system is so rigged.”

Brzezinski replied that the Democrats are “always talk[ing] about voter turnout and how important it is to do your duty as a citizen, but there’s absolutely no reason any of those people voted.”

“The party sends its activists out and [sends] people chattering on TV and chattering on talk radio about voter disenfranchisement,” Scarborough added. “This same party tells voters to ‘Go to Hell!’ when they select somebody by 12 percentage points and end up letting the other candidate, who lost by 12 percentage points, win the most delegates. That — by definition — is voter disenfranchisement!"
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What do you guys think? Is this voter disenfranchisement? Is the system rigged?

Lock if old, I did do a search to make sure.
 
You can thank the mcgovern-fraser commission which led to the Hunt Commission - which led to being rigged.
 
The American voting system is too goddamn complicated. Especially the selection of the official nominee is so needlessly complex it's not even funny. I still can't wrap my head around some of these rules that make loosing candidates earn more delegates. Wtf!
 
Sadly, these parties are private. Being our only options though, it is destroying democracy in our nation, but that is by design. Super Delegates or Congress's ability to pick the new president if the people don't decide with enough votes. This is an oligarchy, a boys club that picks their own horses and tells us to shut up.
 
The American system is fucked up, but it should be stated that Bernie has a disproportionate number of delegates to the number of people who voted for him overall. Something like 46% to 42% according to 538.
 
So how does this Delegates thing work? Do the public vote to say "We want this one", and then the delegates just say "Ok, well, I don't want that, so no."

Or am I missing something?
 
Random17 said:
The American system is fucked up, but it should be stated that Bernie has a disproportionate number of delegates to the number of people who voted for him overall. Something like 46% to 42% according to 538.
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Hillary is something like three million votes ahead of Bernie. So why did Hillary get more delegates in Wyoming though? Are they using the supers to inflate the numbers? Getting tired of the Bernie camp whining about the supers.
 
water_wendi said:
The system is a failure, top to bottom. Nonviolence has failed us. There is not other choice.
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Or you know, have people actually vote and start caring about (local) politics.

Advocating for a violent uprising or revolution is disgusting. Are you the one going to take the hit? No. The people who are already poor and in trouble will.
 
HandsomeCharles said:
So how does this Delegates thing work? Do the public vote to say "We want this one", and then the delegates just say "Ok, well, I don't want that, so no."

Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Many delegates have even outright stated their desire to vote against their state in the name of what's "best for the country"; which of course is subjective.

It's a system that is receiving a lot of criticism now due to lopsided delegate rewards through Bernie Sanders's wins.
 
neoanarch said:
Hillary is somethingike three million votes ahead of Bernie. So why did Hillary get more delegates in Wyoming though? Are they using the supers to count inflate the numbers? Getting tired of the Bernie camp whining about the supers.
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Yes. Of course.

Pledged delegates are tied, 7-7.
 
This isn't true. Clinton only has 11 delegates out of Wyoming if you count superdelegates who were not and never were going to be assigned as a result of the election and are still not required to vote for her. They could change their minds, and in fact most people expect that as a whole the superdelegates would not deny Sanders the nomination if he had a democratic mandate.

Clinton tied Sanders in pledged delegates from the Wyoming primary because nobody lives in Wyoming and this is just how the rounding works out. Sanders would have taken a delegate off of Clinton if he'd gotten I think less than 1% more of the vote.
 
HandsomeCharles said:
So how does this Delegates thing work? Do the public vote to say "We want this one", and then the delegates just say "Ok, well, I don't want that, so no."

Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Delegates are awarded proportional to the vote. Wyoming has 14 total, each candidate got 7. However Hillary picked up 4 superdelegates. That's when things get weird.

Superdelegates are free to vote for whomever they want, and can change their mind whenever they want (as long as the candidate has not been decided). They are typically important leaders in the democratic party who represent their state. They exist to prevent crazy people from running away with the party nomination (something the Republicans would love right now).

Is the system rigged? Let's see if the candidate who gets the popular vote doesn't get the nomination, then make that decision.
 
Super delegates should not be counted as part of the tally. It was 7-7 because Sanders didn't win by a large enough margin to split it 8-6. It's not rigged. It's math.

If you want to talk about shady dealings, Nevada is a lot worse than this.
 
us system is crazy. Crazy i tell you. Like someone threw a bunch of papers while taking a shit and accordingly to how they fell he based the election system.

Just have 2 nationals and count the votes. It's called democracy.
 
This American system is so confusing. How does one become a superdelegate? Is it though a vote? Money? Hereditary? Divine right? RNGesus?
 
Zipzo said:
Many delegates have even outright stated their desire to vote against their state in the name of what's "best for the country"; which of course is subjective.

It's a system that is receiving a lot of criticism now due to lopsided delegate rewards through Bernie Sanders's wins.
Click to expand...

Man, I always knew the American system was pretty poor, but I had no idea about this. It seems ridiculous to be honest.

Salamando said:
Delegates are awarded proportional to the vote. Wyoming has 14 total, each candidate got 7. However Hillary picked up 4 superdelegates. That's when things get weird.

Superdelegates are free to vote for whomever they want, and can change their mind whenever they want (as long as the candidate has not been decided). They are typically important leaders in the democratic party who represent their state. They exist to prevent crazy people from running away with the party nomination (something the Republicans would love right now).

Is the system rigged? Let's see if the candidate who gets the popular vote doesn't get the nomination, then make that decision.
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Thanks, that clears it up a bit. Still seems like an iffy system at best though.
 
I think they tied with 7 delegates each, but Hillary got superdelegates as well. And I think they tied despite Bernie winning the overall vote because Hillary just happened to win more delegate districts. Can't say I care for the caucus system but it's not like some outrageous underhanded tactic was done, it's how the system has always worked. Unless I'm missing something?
 
Divvy said:
This American system is so confusing. How does one become a superdelegate? Is it though a vote? Money? Hereditary? Divine right? RNGesus?
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It's just high ranking members of the party. The presidential nominee selection process is not a democratic process, it's a party process. Prior to the 70's, there were;t even binding primary/caucus elections (only 14 states ever had voter preference straw polls/caucuses), and every delegate selecting the candidate was a 'super delegate' in today's parlance.
 
So let me get this straight.

The campaign that:

1) Has more delegates than it should according to the voting totals

2) Has generally won states through caucus's which are the mostly wildly undemocratic system ever created on god's earth

3) Has openly been abusing selection rules to overturn the will of voters in several states

Is complaining because *maths* is biased now?
 
Taking aside the superdelegates. It's just the math of a proportional system with a low number of delegates to hand out. There's always going to be some gradation in allocation the gradated steps are further apart as the number of delegates to allocate out drops. There's only 14 pledged delegates, Sanders got 55.7% of the vote.

.557 * 14 = 7.80

as Sanders didn't get enough of a percentage of the vote to get 8 delegates , he's stuck at 7 and Clinton gets the remainder which happens to be 7. Had Sanders gotten 57.2% (or more accurately 57.15%) of the vote he'd have gotten the extra delegate. Had the number of delegates to allocate out been uneven, Sanders would have gained but they're even.

Now this is somewhat simplified as there's a per district differentiation but it's broadly accurate in this case.
 
HandsomeCharles said:
So how does this Delegates thing work? Do the public vote to say "We want this one", and then the delegates just say "Ok, well, I don't want that, so no."

Or am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Superdelegates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate#History

"In 1982, the Hunt Commission recommended and the Democratic National Committee adopted a rule that set aside some delegate slots for Democratic members of Congress and for state party chairs and vice chairs."

Those delegates are the superdelegates and they make up around 20% of the total count for each state.
 
water_wendi said:
My vote is going to the candidate that will make the country so bad that there is no choice other than action.
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You greatly underestimate people's willingness to turn a blind eye to awful shit. So, um, thanks for casting your vote in support of pointless suffering and the curtailment of basic human rights for the most vulnerable groups in this nation?

Seriously, you've got a stellar strategy there.
 
johnsmith said:
Super delegates should not be counted as part of the tally. It was 7-7 because Sanders didn't win by a large enough margin to split it 8-6. It's not rigged. It's math.

If you want to talk about shady dealings, Nevada is a lot worse than this.
Click to expand...

A 12 point win is a clear victory.

.56 x 14 = 7.84, rounds to 8
.44 x 14 = 6.16 , rounds to 6

But apparently math doesnt actually apply here.
 
StopMakingSense said:
And the title has a very curious definition of the word "most"
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Yep.

I'm all for having these discussions on the primary process but presenting the info in this manner is inappropriate. It shows a clear bias and a blatant disregard for the truth. It also continues the stereotype that Bernie supporters are uninformed.
 
Zipzo said:
Clinton literally got most of the delegates, unless you're being stingy about the distinction between super and non-super.

I added a bold statement above the counts anyhow.
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Dude, adding the super to the count to make some point about the process is disingenuous at best.
 
goomba said:
A 12 point win is a clear victory.

.56 x 14 = 7.84, rounds to 8
.44 x 14 = 6.16 , rounds to 6

But apparently math doesnt actually apply here.
Click to expand...

I believe that what's going on is that some of the delegates are congressional district delegates and some are at-large and these are computed separately. There's a bundle of 8 delegates that are allocated according to the congressional district vote and then a bundle of 4 (and another of 2) that are allocated according to the state-wide vote. But Wyoming is a 1-district state and so these are the same vote. This creates some weird rounding issues. Off the top of my head I expect that a 75/25 win would end up giving the 75% winner disproportionately more delegates, for example.

Zipzo said:
Clinton literally got most of the delegates, unless you're being stingy about the distinction between super and non-super.

I added a bold statement above the counts anyhow.
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Well, no, she hasn't gotten any superdelegates yet since they don't vote until the convention and could change their mind. In fact Sanders' avowed strategy right now is basically to convince lots of superdelegates, including those in states Clinton won, to do just this.
 
neoanarch said:
Dude, adding the super to the count to make some point about the process is disingenuous at best.
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I disagree. It's still indicative of an issue to many.

For the record, I'm not even in the states, for those wanting to crucify me as a "Bernie boy" above.
 
1. Nothing spoken of in this thread speaks to anything having been "rigged." The rules in place are clear to all parties, and have not been violated in fact or in spirit.

2. Sanders is disproportionately benefiting from the "un-democratic" aspects of the system. This one caucus is practically the only one to go against Bernie slightly, while all the others have benefited his delegate gains substantially. Caucuses themselves are supremely unrepresentative of the population and are disproportionately driven by activists and passionate supporters. This is justifiable in that this is a political party's primary system and not a real government election. But again, they overwhelmingly benefit Sanders so it is ludicrous to criticize it when a single one, in basically the smallest state in the country, doesn't go thoroughly in his favor.

3. Superdelegates are not presently doing anything against the will of the people. They are following the rules. And besides, the only theoretically credible strategy the Sanders campaign is making for being able to win the Primaries is that they are going to override the will of the voters and convince the Superdelegates to support Sanders over Hillary.

4. Joe Scarborough is, at best, a conservative Republican trying to divide and conquer, and, at worst, a know-nothing. He is not someone your source should be citing. The Democratic primaries are considerably more democratic than the Republican ones, if only by virtue of being almost entirely proportional rather than having numerous large winner-take-all states. By this same token, the Democrats' primaries are in many ways more open and democratic than the actual Electoral College, but that's another story entirely.
 
Can someone try to explain, within reason, how someone can win votes yet lose the goodies that winning votes is supposed to accomplish.

I mean..why even vote if the goodie is not even up for grabs by the direction of the general public?

Assuming the theme of the thread has merit, of course..
 
I am not an american but the way I understand it the primaries are not necessarily a democratic process, it's how the party internally chooses it's candidate for the actual election. so the delegates make sure that the candidate is someone who represents the party well.
even if you call that "rigged", Sanders can still run for president on his own the way I understand it, just not with the party's blessing
 
Foffy said:
Can someone try to explain, within reason, how someone can win votes yet lose the goodies that winning votes is supposed to accomplish.

I mean..why even vote if the goodie is not even up for grabs by the direction of the general public?
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I mean, our winner-take-all electoral college allows for one candidate in a two-man race to win the presidency with something like 25% of the vote. Other countries' processes often allow for similarly weird outcomes. Mostly these processes still work out pretty well, just like the Democratic primary, such that the person with the most actual popular support wins.
 
Moff said:
I am not an american but the way I understand it the primaries are not necessarily a democratic process, it's how the party internally chooses it's candidate for the actual election. so the delegates make sure that the candidate is someone who represents the party well.
even if you call that "rigged", Sanders can still run for president on his own the way I understand it, just not with the party's blessing
Click to expand...

Not having the party behind you though is about the same as having a 0% chance of getting the nomination, therefore having the party behind you becomes a pretty crucial element of the process anyway.
 
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