Detailed caucus-primary statistical report
By MarkJay on June 2, 2008 at 11:21 PM in Barack Obama, DNC, Democrats, Disenfranchisement, Popular Vote, Washington state
Peniel Conin, President & CEO of Global Basic and eNameWiz.com, has written a detailed 13-page statistical report and analysis of caucus vs. primary results from the 2008 Democratic nominating campaign. (This has been reported at Talkleft here and here and here.)
Conin suffers from a disability resulting from a car accident 40 years ago, which left her wheelchair bound at a time when there were no curb cuts or ramps and many places were inaccessible. That is what fueled her passion about caucus information.
Among the information available in the report:
* The 37 primary states account for more than 97% of the vote — yet only 85.2% of the delegates
* The 13 caucus states account for less than 3% of the vote — yet for 14.8% of the delegates.
* The 13 caucus states have roughly 3.2 million voting age people with disabilities. Unlike official state primaries, neither the ADA nor HAVA cover caucus-related disability issues and there is limited legal recourse to force the parties to comply with accessibility standards.
* The average turnout in primary states has been 18.7%. This is more than four-fold the average turnout in caucus states, which has been 4.5%
* In the 37 primaries, Hillary Clinton is up 500,000 votes (counting Florida and Michigan; She is up by 350,000 votes if Obama is given 75% of the uncommitted vote in Michigan). In the 13 caucus states, Obama is up 300,000 votes
* Clinton has won 20 of the 37 primaries, but only 1 of the 17 caucuses
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I have some comments on the primary-caucus system myself, but I prefer to leave those out for now and leave this as an announcement and summary of a very interesting report.
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SusanUnPC’s NOTE & Personal Story: In January, I received and mailed in an absentee ballot for the Washington state presidential primary. I voted for Hillary Clinton.
On February 5, 2008, I underwent emergency surgery and was in the hospital for a full week thereafter. I will never forget that date because the Super Tuesday primaries were that day, and I missed watching all the returns because I was on an operating table.
My caucus was held on Saturday, February 9, 2008. I was unable to attend, obviously, because I was still in the hospital on IVs with very strong antibiotics to fight a massive, life-threatening infection.
My nurses, physicians, attendants, and the hospital’s other employees — from janitors to the cafeteria workers who prepared my all-liquid diet — were also unable to attend.
They ALL expressed to me how VERY unhappy they were that they, like I, were disenfranchised.
So, besides disabled people, the people I know of who were disenfranchised that day:
- anyone who must work on a Saturday
- anyone who is in a hospital as a patient
- anyone who is ill from the flu or a bad cold
- anyone who cannot traverse the LONG hallways of big school buildings, and sit in extremely uncomfortable chairs for hours
- anyone too poor to hire a babysitter to care for children
- anyone who has worked all week and who dedicates weekends to spending PRECIOUS TIME with their children
- anyone who works all week and must devote Saturdays to necessary errands, chores, repairs — including oil changes on one’s car, trips to the grocery store and pharmacy, and on and on
IN OTHER WORDS, anyone but the MOST affluent, the MOST young, the MOST physically able is DISENFRANCHISED BY THIS ABSURD SYSTEM.
Oh yes, Barack Obama did very well in Washington state’s caucuses — he won by over 60%. I forget the exact percentage now.
And what happened to that absentee ballot I cast in January? Oh, a few weeks later, it was counted along with all the ballots mailed in by voters across the state of Washington.
Barack Obama barely reached 50% in those ballots.
But guess what.
MY VOTE — and the votes of all who cast absentee ballots — did not count for a single delegate in the Democratic party.
The Republican party did a much fairer thing — they allotted a percentage of delegates to the candidate who did best in the absentee ballot count, as well as at the caucuses.
If this isn’t utterly stupid, I don’t know what is.
If this isn’t utterly CRUEL and unfair to people who have a hard time taking HOURS off on a Saturday to exercise one of their most important DUTIES as an American citizen, I do not know what is.
So the latte liberals and young students got ALL the say on who the delegates are from Washington state.
It is completely unfair and undemocratic.
I am still furious.






















