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2009-02-12T00:09:00.000-05:00

That's reasonable, though I would argue that the g...

2008-06-05T15:19:41.792-04:00

That's reasonable, though I would argue that the goal of counting/estimating the popular vote in an election is to get a sense of the absolute numbers of voters who supported each individual candidate. If that is the case, then it makes sense to solely count the Texas primary.

The problem with counting just the Texas primary i...

2008-06-05T15:07:41.672-04:00

The problem with counting just the Texas primary is that it ignores the Texas caucus votes. The Texas caucus was a sanctioned election with real delegates apportioned based on the result. If we're trying to come up with an actual vote total in the Democratic nominating contests, I don't see how we can ignore one of those contests. Of course, just adding up both the Texas primary and caucus votes creates a double count problem. That's why I suggest counting votes in each contest as only a fraction (specifically, the fraction corresponding to the number of delegates apportioned by each contest to the total number of delegates awarded in Texas). By counting votes in each as only a fraction, it's impossible to double count anyone's vote. In effect, everyone has a full vote, 2/3 of which can be cast in the primary and 1/3 of which can be cast in the caucus. Those who chose not to cast their 1/3 caucus vote don't have that part of their vote counted. In this sense, they are no different from any other voter who chose not to exercise their right to vote.

Another Mike, what's wrong with just counting the ...

2008-06-05T14:17:42.187-04:00

Another Mike, what's wrong with just counting the Texas Primary. If the principle is that each person's vote should count once, then that's the only fair thing to do. By law, everybody who caucused in Texas had to have voted in the primary earlier that day, so to count both would be categorically double-counting some people's votes, and to only use the primary numbers would not discount anybody's vote.

I have problems with your Michigan scenarios.1. Y...

2008-06-05T13:43:26.749-04:00

I have problems with your Michigan scenarios.

1. You award Obama all uncommitted and write-in votes. Edwards was still a viable candidate at the time.

2. Since when do we count illegal write-in votes? If you start down this road, you might as well count disqualified ballots from every other contest.

3. Anything awarded based on exit polls seems to completely abrogate the meaning of "popular vote." If this metric has any meaning, it is for actual, legally cast votes. What you're doing is trying to better reflect popular will. But, that's something a little different from popular vote.

4. My personal count: Michigan's election was a farce--it doesn't count.

5. Florida is a tougher case because turnout was much closer to normal and the results are much closer to reality. But, since there was no campaigning and people were told their votes would not count, I tend to think it's vote total should also be excluded.

6. All caucuses should count, even those for which we don't have precise numbers but do have estimates. Of course, we then have to admit that the resulting totals are estimates as well.

7. Territories are sanctioned contests under the rules. Of course their votes should count.

8. What to do with Texas is a mess. I like the (2/3 * primary vote) + (1/3 * caucus vote) solution, as it avoids double counting and reflects the relative weight assigned to the primary/caucus.

All of this (plus SO much more) show that "popular vote" is way too arbitrary of a measure in which to place much, if any, meaning. Especially for a race as close as this one.

Nate -first, i like your analysis of Michigan's pr...

2008-06-05T13:06:12.165-04:00

Nate -

first, i like your analysis of Michigan's primary based on exit polls. i wanted to say, though, that while it's a reasonable compromise to award write-in ballots based on exit polls, and a reasonable assumption that those votes occurred proportionally on election day, i think that in the specific case of our primary this year that this is not necessarily accurate.

confusion leading up to the primary was great, of course, but the push on the MDP's part to clarify what real options people had on their ballots was not in full swing until one or two weeks prior to election day. absentee ballots, however, were distributed 4 or more weeks prior to election day. although it's anecdotal evidence, i have heard many more accounts of people writing in names on their mail-in ballots, than in the voting booth. by that time, we had the word out about Uncommitted. exit polls, then, would probably represent a LESS than proportional number of the ruined ballots.

second, although you may have cleared this up at some point, i can't tell if you're distributing write-ins to ALL the candidates based on the exit polls, or all except those on the ballot. again, anecdotal, but even being in a position to hear a lot of stupid things people did with their ballots this year, i haven't heard of anyone writing in Clinton - or Kucinich or Gravel for that matter. any reason to think that these votes were intended for candidates OTHER than those provided on the ballot?

RealClearPolitics notes that if the Washington pri...

2008-06-04T22:35:38.932-04:00

RealClearPolitics notes that if the Washington primary votes are used instead of the estimated caucus votes, Obama's margin shrinks by 50,000. In any case, this is a remarkably close election - your preferred method provides a margin of 0.25%. Who would have given odds that the popular vote would be effectively tied after 57 states and territories voted separately over 21 weeks?

The argument for not including the Texas caucuses ...

2008-06-04T17:36:01.778-04:00

The argument for not including the Texas caucuses is that it's a double counting of votes. Every single person who voted in the Texas caucuses was required to have voted in the primary earlier that day. To include those caucus results in the overall popular vote count would not be discounting anybody's vote and would be, by definition, counting single individuals' votes twice.

Lisa--Sorry, your "they shouldn't have taken Clint...

2008-06-04T17:16:25.343-04:00

Lisa--

Sorry, your "they shouldn't have taken Clinton's delegates in Michigan" comment just reminded me too much of the whining about Obama "stealing Clinton's delegates". My apologies if that wasn't what you intended to say.

Regardless, aside from the effort to mollify Clinton's supporters, it would be very difficult to achieve party unity if Clinton could make a more persuasive argument about the popular vote. If they'd respected Michigan's failed primary, they would not only have been essentially asserting that they have *no standards* on what constitutes a viable contest, but they would have been legitimizing Clinton's claim to a popular vote lead.

No matter what the outcome, many Clinton supporters would cry bias and unfairness. Even had they given Clinton everything she'd asked for, if Obama had then won the nomination the cries of those evil, unfair delegates taking away the nomination from the will of the people would've been even louder. I think they achieved the best possible result to give Clinton more than she could reasonably ask for without damaging Obama's legitimacy.

Lisa:You're 100% right from a strategic point of v...

2008-06-04T17:01:48.814-04:00

Lisa:
You're 100% right from a strategic point of view, but the RBC was also considering the consequences in future primaries of letting Florida and Michigan off the hook. A 50% delegate penalty was the least they could get away with. Still, it would have been best for them to award Michigan's delegates 73-55 with the penalty to satisfy Clinton supporters. If they were really bold, they could have left the 55 delegates for 'uncommitted', since the superdelegates would have put Obama over the top anyways. But that might have pushed Obama supporters over the edge.

Stephen, I never said that Obama took anything. An...

2008-06-04T16:06:55.632-04:00

Stephen, I never said that Obama took anything. And I'm not a very good Clinton apologist. I'm just thinking strategically for the DNC...the point should not have been trying to reverse engineer the motives of the voters...it shouldn't even have been to come up with something "fair." By the time the R&B committee met, the nomination was already determined in favor of Obama, and they should have realized that the *only* goal should have been to come up with a plan to mollify the supporters of the runner-up and to devise a solution in which there was little or no possibility of a "we wuz robbed!" claimed from the Clinton voters.

That's just my take.

Lisa-Now that Obama has the nomination in hand, I ...

2008-06-04T15:58:10.028-04:00

Lisa-
Now that Obama has the nomination in hand, I expect he'll give back those 4 delegates in time for the convention.

I don't see how you can possibly disregard the Mic...

2008-06-04T15:56:47.518-04:00

I don't see how you can possibly disregard the Michigan write-ins. The popular vote is a moral argument, not a technical one. We want to know which candidate had the support of the most voters. Can there be any question that voters who wrote in Obama's name supported Obama?

Lisa--I really wish people would stop repeating th...

2008-06-04T15:49:44.159-04:00

Lisa--

I really wish people would stop repeating the "Obama took Clinton's delegates" misinformation. The delegate compromise Michigan presented had nothing to do with the Michigan primary. They basically admitted the primary was a farce and shouldn't count, and created a compromise delegate allocation to use *instead*.

A perhaps more realistic proposition is that Obama *gave* Clinton five of *his* delegates, because a 50/50 split would have been rather more fair considering no valid primary was held.

At this point, there is very little argument not t...

2008-06-04T15:43:17.229-04:00

At this point, there is very little argument not to include Florida at full weight.

1) Obama never got a chance to make his case to the Florida voters.

2) Hundreds of thousands of Florida voters stayed home because they were told their votes would not count.

I hardly think that qualifies as "very little argument." The DNC compromise was done for political reasons, and it hardly confers upon Florida the legitimacy of a real primary like the one in PA.

The more exotic scenarios like counting the Texas caucus vote or excluding Puerto Rico and other territories can probably also be discarded.

I agree about Puerto Rico, but how is it exotic to include the Texas caucus, where approximately 1 million people showed up because they were told their votes would count? Every contest in which delegates were selected should be included, because voters were told these contests mattered. It seems strange to exclude just one. The weighting should be roughly (1/3) caucus vote and (2/3) primary vote, as established by the Texas Democratic party.

This is what I meant when I said the other day tha...

2008-06-04T15:40:36.448-04:00

This is what I meant when I said the other day that the DNC screwed up. Their primary objective should have been to find a solution that satisfied both states and both sets of candidate supporters. They failed miserably. They should have granted Hillary supporters 90% of the vote (some sanction was necessary for the states' violations), they shouldn't have taken her delegates in Michigan, and Obama still would have won the nomination. Now Obama wins the nomination but he's got the Furies chasing him.

At this point, there is very little argument not t...

2008-06-04T15:33:22.396-04:00

At this point, there is very little argument not to include Florida at full weight.

You mean besides the fact that we aren't supposed to include either Florida or Michigan?

Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Final Popular Vote Estimates: Obama wins 7 of 8 Mi...

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That's reasonable, though I would argue that the g...

The problem with counting just the Texas primary i...

Another Mike, what's wrong with just counting the ...

I have problems with your Michigan scenarios.1. Y...

Nate -first, i like your analysis of Michigan's pr...

RealClearPolitics notes that if the Washington pri...

The argument for not including the Texas caucuses ...

Lisa--Sorry, your "they shouldn't have taken Clint...

Lisa:You're 100% right from a strategic point of v...

Stephen, I never said that Obama took anything. An...

Lisa-Now that Obama has the nomination in hand, I ...

I don't see how you can possibly disregard the Mic...

Lisa--I really wish people would stop repeating th...

At this point, there is very little argument not t...

This is what I meant when I said the other day tha...

At this point, there is very little argument not t...