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The Numbers don't Lie, but the Caucus Numbers did Lie.
If you followed the number tallies in both elections tonight, did you notice how both candidates started with big leads, but by the time all the votes were counted the final vote was a lot closer? It is basically a statistical inevitability that as more and more votes are counted, the totals naturally come closer together. Early on, Hillary was winning 58% to 42% in Indiana, then barely hung on for a 51%-49% victory margin. Obama was winning early, 70% to 30% in North Carolina, but that lead was cut in half and then some with a final victory margin of 56%-42%. In both cases, the early margins were SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED.
The above scenario is an exact analogy when comparing the caucus state votes and the primary state votes. The caucus state votes involve much smaller voter samples, so a larger margin of victory can be had. The problem with this is this larger margin of victory IS NOT indicative of the will of the actual population of the entire state.
Barack Obama won approximately 164 more delegate votes in the caucuses than Hillary Clinton, but you have to multiply that by two to get the net effect. So Barack actually benefited by 328 delegate votes via the caucuses. If Barack had actually won all the caucus states by a true representation of his popularity, Barack would have picked up significantly less delegates from all the caucus states than the 164 delegate margin that he did actually get.
I haven't done the specific calculations yet but whatever less delegate numbers Obama should have gotten then needs to be multiplied by two because Hillary picks one up for every one that Obama loses. Ethically speaking, Obama should have picked up approximately 80 delegates instead of 164 from all the caucus states. The 84 delegates Hillary did not get actually equals 84 X 2 or a 168 delegate loss for Hillary. Since Obama's 11 largest winning percentages were ALL in caucus states, it is clear that Obama received more than his fair share from the caucus process.
Add in Florida and Hillary would actually be leading in the delegate count right now, even with tonights loss in North Carolina! I believe EVERYBODY in the media has glossed over the caucus voting inaccuracies because they are basically lazy.
I don't mean to torture everybody with this truth about the caucuses, but there is a way to calculate the actual number of delegates that Obama SHOULD have picked up from the caucus votes versus the extra delegate votes that Obama actually picked up. Simply calculate the winning percentage that Obama achieved in the primary states and apply that winning percentage to the caucus states. On top of that, a couple more percentage points could perhaps be added just to try to bend over backwards being fair about this issue. When the caucus state delegate recalcuation is done, the delegate race is either a virtual tie, or Hillary is ahead, this is without counting Florida and Michigan. You know Florida, the state with all the retirees that would tend to vote for Hillary. Florida is to Hillary as Illinois was to Obama.
Remember, even a North Carolina win of 56% to 42% does not come close to in winning percentage to 14 of Obama's caucus wins! Obama's 11th largest wins were ALL in undervote caucus states.. As you can see, each caucus state undervote total never truly showed the true will of the people because the caucus vote total is just too small of a sample size. Just as you witnessed large decreases in the margin of victory from the Indiana and the North Carolina votes last night as the vote count progressed, the same reality was never applied to the caucus states because the vote totals are just too low, and the locations and times of the caucus events and the public nature of these votes unfairly favor Obama's voters. Primaries tend to be much much fairer because there are way more locations and a person has a 12 hour window of opporunity to vote in AND they get the privacy of a voting booth to fill out their ballot.
When you also factor in all the momentum and extra delegates that Obama picked up from the caucus state votes and all the resulting negative press that Hillary Clinton received for not getting out of a race she was actually winning, it's amazing that Hillary has done as well as she has.
The above scenario is an exact analogy when comparing the caucus state votes and the primary state votes. The caucus state votes involve much smaller voter samples, so a larger margin of victory can be had. The problem with this is this larger margin of victory IS NOT indicative of the will of the actual population of the entire state.
Barack Obama won approximately 164 more delegate votes in the caucuses than Hillary Clinton, but you have to multiply that by two to get the net effect. So Barack actually benefited by 328 delegate votes via the caucuses. If Barack had actually won all the caucus states by a true representation of his popularity, Barack would have picked up significantly less delegates from all the caucus states than the 164 delegate margin that he did actually get.
I haven't done the specific calculations yet but whatever less delegate numbers Obama should have gotten then needs to be multiplied by two because Hillary picks one up for every one that Obama loses. Ethically speaking, Obama should have picked up approximately 80 delegates instead of 164 from all the caucus states. The 84 delegates Hillary did not get actually equals 84 X 2 or a 168 delegate loss for Hillary. Since Obama's 11 largest winning percentages were ALL in caucus states, it is clear that Obama received more than his fair share from the caucus process.
Add in Florida and Hillary would actually be leading in the delegate count right now, even with tonights loss in North Carolina! I believe EVERYBODY in the media has glossed over the caucus voting inaccuracies because they are basically lazy.
I don't mean to torture everybody with this truth about the caucuses, but there is a way to calculate the actual number of delegates that Obama SHOULD have picked up from the caucus votes versus the extra delegate votes that Obama actually picked up. Simply calculate the winning percentage that Obama achieved in the primary states and apply that winning percentage to the caucus states. On top of that, a couple more percentage points could perhaps be added just to try to bend over backwards being fair about this issue. When the caucus state delegate recalcuation is done, the delegate race is either a virtual tie, or Hillary is ahead, this is without counting Florida and Michigan. You know Florida, the state with all the retirees that would tend to vote for Hillary. Florida is to Hillary as Illinois was to Obama.
Remember, even a North Carolina win of 56% to 42% does not come close to in winning percentage to 14 of Obama's caucus wins! Obama's 11th largest wins were ALL in undervote caucus states.. As you can see, each caucus state undervote total never truly showed the true will of the people because the caucus vote total is just too small of a sample size. Just as you witnessed large decreases in the margin of victory from the Indiana and the North Carolina votes last night as the vote count progressed, the same reality was never applied to the caucus states because the vote totals are just too low, and the locations and times of the caucus events and the public nature of these votes unfairly favor Obama's voters. Primaries tend to be much much fairer because there are way more locations and a person has a 12 hour window of opporunity to vote in AND they get the privacy of a voting booth to fill out their ballot.
When you also factor in all the momentum and extra delegates that Obama picked up from the caucus state votes and all the resulting negative press that Hillary Clinton received for not getting out of a race she was actually winning, it's amazing that Hillary has done as well as she has.
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