I don't think this is about math.

[nbsmom]

Yeah, I'm a little fired up. I've been looking at the delegate totals (using NYT and Politico primary maps showing delegates awarded to date), and I'm having trouble making the numbers add up in 28 of the states that have voted so far.

For example, Minnesota:

Bernie won 61.6% of the vote, but received 49 delegates (versus a total of 57 delegates in a proportional system).
Hillary won 38.4% of the vote, but got 42 delegates (compare to 38 delegates in a proportional allocation).

Then there's Wisconsin:

Bernie took 56.6% of the vote, and should have ended up with 54 delegates in a proportional system. He got 49.
Meanwhile, Hillary, although she received only 43.1% of the votes cast, was awarded 45 delegates instead of the 41 she should have received.

And THOSE ARE STATES WHERE BERNIE WON.

In New York, Hillary's take of the 291 delegates definitely exceeded her percentage of the votes.

With 58% of the vote, Hillary should have gotten 169 delegates. Instead, she got 178.
Bernie, on the other hand, got 108 delegates instead of 122 delegates that his 42% of the vote should have earned.

A similar scenario played out with the 252 delegates at stake in Texas.

It's easy to see why Hillary ended up with 165 delegates, because that does reflect her percentage (65.20%) there.
But Bernie, with his 33.20% of the vote, instead of being awarded 84 delegates, ended up with only 73.

I could go on. (Actually, I kind of did: I made a whole spreadsheet so I could understand why the numbers are so off.) What I finally realized is that someone needs to explain why enough votes have been moved from Bernie's column to Hillary's (in at least 28 states), so that instead of 1276 delegates, Bernie has 1149. And why Hillary, instead of having 1301 delegates right now, has 1386.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to notice this vote "misplacement," and how it has led to Bernie "trailing" by 268 delegates.

What do you want to bet that the gap would be under 50 if the delegates were awarded proportionately? Do you think the media would be ready to pull the trigger next Tuesday (before the polls close in CA) if the difference was less than 40 or 50?

Makes you wonder...

But, yeah, let's talk about the Orange One and his plans for giving the press corps a wedgie.

Please, please, please check the math, check my numbers, send me links.

These are the 28 states I looked at:
Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia Wisconsin, Wyoming

[drray23]

1. I think it is a bit more complex

All the delegates are allocated proportionally, however some states have added rules that makes it a little bit different. I think in some states, you get bonus delegates if you sweep certain counties and so on.. I seem top recall simply doing the proportions does not exactly give you the right numbers.

[CorporatistNation]

20. "Special Rules" = RIGGING! THE KLOWNS THINK WE'RE ALL MORONS...

A TOTALLY CORRUPT OPERATION!

[randome]

40. Your Caps lock key is corrupted.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[pkdu]

2. Read up on how states allocate delegates at ..

Www.thegreenpapers.Com

All will become clear. Not all primary votes are NOT equal in any given State. Or even between States.

[CentralMass]

5. The issue is that in every state where superd's have committed they have done so greatly

disproportionately for Hillary relative to percentage of pledged delegate thst she has won.
Like a 9.5 :1 advantage. It's even higher..

[pkdu]

7. OP is about pledged delegates, not supers. Nt

[onenote]

13. No, the OP can't tell or doesn't know the difference between the two

The OP thinks that 61.1 percent of the delegates in MN is 57. It is. But only if you lump the supers together with the pledged. I'll do the math for you. MN has 77 pledged delegates and 16 supers, or a total of 93 delegates. 61.1 percent of 77 pledged delegates = 47. 61.1 of 93 combined pledged and supers is 57.

Another example. The OP says there are 252 delegates in Texas. But that's combining the 222 pledged delegates with 30 supers. And it fails to take into account that 9 or 10 supers from Texas haven't endorsed anyone yet.

[onenote]

15. and if supers were awarded proportionately there would be no need for them

But you have to realize that.

So let's ignore the supers. Sanders is losing by 268 pledged delegates, exactly the number the OP seems to think is wrong.

[CentralMass]

3. Thank you for your effort in putting this together and I think that you are right.

The disproportionate super delegate count the Hillary recieved starting with the first primary in New Hampshire along with the media resorting it with the pledged delegates created a inaccurate narrative and a perception that she was trouncing him. The cycle before she enjoyed a 93% to 7% advantage in the superd's that had committed to date.

Our electoral system needs an enema.

[onenote]

10. so the fact that she had support and endorsements is now rigging the system?

And if it was in the bag from the outset, wouldn't that be as likely to suppress turnout by Clinton supporters (after all, if your candidate has it won, why bother) as to suppress turnout by Sanders supporters.

It's really past time for Sanders supporters to stop making excuses and deal with reality.

[pdsimdars]

37. Right back at you. You guys make more excuses, rationalizations and deflections than I have ever

seen. Time to take a good, long look in the mirror.

It's really past time for Clinton supporters to admit they have a very flawed candidate who may well be indicted, who also has the lowest favorability of any candidate in Democratic history.

[YouDig]

45. What excuses? We won. We don't need excuses.

[lagomorph777]

44. With friends like DWS, who needs enemas?

I'm tired of being a second-class citizen because I'm not in the ruling class.

[panader0]

4. This entire primary has been a clusterfuck on so many levels.

The idea of "democracy" has become a joke.

[onenote]

8. actually it is this OP that is a joke

The OP doesn't appear to know the difference between pledged delegates that awarded proportionately and super delegates that are not subject to proportional allocation.

What's even sadder is that some of the posts responding couldn't figure out what the OP's mistake was.

[anotherproletariat]

36. Exactly!! nt

[onenote]

6. What makes me wonder is why its only Sanders supporters that can't do math.

or understand the delegate allocation system. In a nutshell, pledged delegates are awarded proportionately. Super delegates are free to support who they want.

One example: Minnesota.

There are 77 pledged delegates allocated proportionately. 61.6% of 77 = 47. The OP seems to think Sanders should get 57 delegates in MN. But 57 is 61.1 percent of 93, which is the total number of pledged and super delegates in Minnesota (77 plus 16). But supers aren't allocated proportionately. Which is something anyone paying attention should know.

The OP made the same mistake in the other states. The OP looked at the combined total of pledged and supers and then applied the proportional allocation methodology to that combined number, not to the pledged.

If supers were allocated proportionately there wouldn't be any need for them. And without the supers, the vote count is 1769 for Clinton and Sanders has 1501 (per the NY Times).

[SFnomad]

9. If you can do math, you cannot escape reality n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. I have a question but first I need to lay a predicate

Did you ever see Boyz In the Hood ?

[SFnomad]

16. No, I did not

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. My question wouldn't make sense...

Any way the SAT came up ... and one of the characters remarked the language section could be culturally biased but math can not be. Who knew?

[SFnomad]

24. Yeah, I think the SAT has struggled with this for quite a while n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. You should see the movie if you get a chance...

The African American dad is trying to impress upon his son the importance of doing well on the SAT. He says "the language part can be culturally biased but math doesn't lie."

Math does seem to be less than candid here.

[SFnomad]

31. If it comes up on one of my channels, I'll watch it

I've always liked Laurence Fishburne, have you ever seen Deep Cover? It's a brutal, but excellent film.

[CorporatistNation]

22. REALITY IS Hillary Is In Ever Deepening SH*T... Allof her Own Doing!

Only question... Is WHEN is the NEXT HAMMER going to drop?

[lostnfound]

12. It doesn't matter. The corporatists have decided, and the cheerleaders are playing their part

Those of us who read Naomi Klein or Noam Chomsky or care about the Allende coup (et al) or the School of the Americas or America's love affair with war or the fact that the masses do not need to be kept insecure and in poverty in Sweden or France (or other countries with a better social safety net) probably would be wise to stop caring about the world being left for our grandchildren.
Because the old America ain't coming back.

[Tarc]

14. You are mixing up pledged delegates + superdelegates, thus drawing erroneous conclusions

Minnesota has 77 pledged delegates and 16 superdelegates, for a total of 93. 61.6% of 77 is 47.4. the Times has Bernie at 46, I don't know why it is off by 1, but close enough for the sake of the discussion here.

Superdelegates can endorse whoever they like, they are not bound to a state's primary or caucus. Even though many have endorsed early for Hillary, the superdelegates have always eventually voted for the candidate who wins the most pledged delegates. In 2008, many endorsed Hillary early as well, but they flipped to Obama when he won the overall Democratic pledged delegate count.

[onenote]

17. Yep. This may be the saddest OP on delegate math I've seen yet.

I don't know which is worse. That the OP is intentionally being misleading and obtuse or the OP really is so clueless as to not know the difference between supers and pledged delegates.

[Tarc]

18. To be fair, the OP's tone does seem to indicate a mistake rather than malice

So i'll give him/her a pass for now.

[LiberalFighter]

26. Allocation of delegates is not done solely based on state-wide results.

They are for (17) at-large and (10) PLEO delegates. Application is done separately for each.

There are 50 district delegates in Minnesota that are allocated based on past election results within 8 congressional districts. Each district is allocated separately based on election results within the district.

[Tarc]

29. That's a distinction without a difference

Pledged PLEOs are still allocated to candidates based on the primary results. At most, it explains the off-by-1 delegate that I noted in Sanders' Minnesota pledged delegate totals.

The OP added up all the delegates of the states, looked at the % Sanders won the state by, and declared unfairness. That is the part that is debunked here.

[LiberalFighter]

34. Here is the breakdown per The Green Papers

CD1 - 3 - 2
CD2 - 3 - 3
CD3 - 4 - 3
CD4 - 4 - 3
CD5 - 6 - 2
CD6 - 3 - 2
CD7 - 3 - 2
CD8 - 4 - 2
PLEO - 6 - 4
At-Large - 10 -7

Totals - 46 - 31

[frazzled]

19. The proportional allocation is not by statewide totals, but by districts

Each district has a certain number of delegates, based on its size (population of Democratic voters). So a densely populated district will have perhaps 6 delegates, while a sparsely populated district may have only 2 or 3. Winning in large urban areas is going to net the candidate more delegates than if they win several small districts. The rules vary somewhat from state to state.

You can't just take the state totals and say that if someone gets 52% of the vote they get 52% of the delegates. The rules are complex, but clearly stated for each contest, and all candidates know what the allocation process is before they even enter the race--which is why none have been contested (save the caucus state of Nevada, which has a whole different system--but Clinton won that fair and square according to all the analysts who reviewed the process. That little folderol on the part of Sanders supporters was a sham).

The math has been and continues to be correct ... if you follow the prescribed rules, that is, and don't make up your own.

So no, you needn't look up all these states, unless you read the rules for the allocation of delegates for each, and research the population density of each district with respect to the number of votes in each district as well.

[LiberalFighter]

28. The rules aren't that complex. It does require basic math.

It is a bit more refine with how many delegates each state has as well as within each district. Bonus delegates are also included based on when a primary is conducted or when a group of neighboring states conduct their primary on the same day.

The base delegates are determined using the average of the 3 past Democratic votes for President along with electoral votes. Two states with nearly identical census population or even registered voters could have a difference in the number of delegates. If a state has a tendency to vote Democratic vs one that tends to vote Republican, the state with higher Democratic turnout would have more delegates. Democratic leaning states are going to be given more weight than Republican states. That reflects a likely general election result for a Democratic candidate. It also should give an incentive for state parties to turnout their voters that gives them more delegates in future primary elections.

[LoverOfLiberty]

23. Please do

compare the percentage of delegates Sanders got in WA compared to his primary performance.

[SheilaT]

27. In some cases the delegates are awarded

at a county or district level of some sort, which can greatly influence the way the numbers work out. If, for instance, a county is going to send 4 delegates to the Convention, and candidate gets 40% of the vote in that county, that would be 1.6 delegates, rounded up to 2. 60% is 2.4 delegates, rounded down to 2. Both roundings are valid. It doesn't seem fair, but that's the math. And how the numbers work out in each and every county could be very similar.

If, for instance, this hypothetical state had 100 delegates to the Convention (just to make the math easier), and the delegates were awarded based on the state as a whole, then the candidate with 60% of the vote would get 60 delegates, and the candidate with 40% of the vote would get 40 delegates. But the delegates aren't awarded that way, instead they're awarded at (in this example) the county level.

And this does not involve any super delegates, but is a straight-forward example of how the raw numbers in the primary can result in very different numbers of delegates.

This is why people ought to be involved in party politics on an ongoing basis, not just pay attention for a brief time once every four years when we're nominating someone to run for President.

[LiberalFighter]

33. It doesn't seem fair for the rounding. That might be the case if

each state was treated differently. But the rule is applied the same for all states. What is tricky is that even if a candidate receives a majority the spread might not be large enough and result in each candidate the same number of delegates when a district has an even number of delegates and a district has 8 or fewer delegates. It is a tradeoff of sorts. Making sure each district has more delegates would make it more difficult to hold a convention. Trying to make each district have an odd number would also be difficult. That would be an indication that the allocation was fixed.

For the most part, district delegates are by congressional districts. The reason for the delegates being allocated also at the district level is to prevent delegates from coming from one or two parts of the state. Without it delegates might all come out of Minneapolis. Districts provide representation from a larger area.

You are so right about the need to be involved on an ongoing basis. Those are the people that tend to have an impact. And they gain the experience and understanding. Mind you not all of them do even under those circumstances. I'm involved at both the county and district level. The district level provides more insight. Not as much as at the state or national but still more than the precinct or county.

[Agnosticsherbet]

30. I think we all agree that the Presidential Primary system needs to be reformed before 2020.

[GoneFishin]

32. You justifiably examined the trees. Now look at the forest as a whole. Do the "special rules" which

some attribute the tilt toward Hillary ever tilt toward Bernie? Or do the supposedly serendipitous voting patterns always magically hand extra votes to Hillary but rarely, if ever, to Bernie?

[nbsmom]

35. And this was actually what drove me to post in the first place

This all started because I was trying to find out what the final tallies were in Oregon (note how the NYT site still shows Oregon reporting 95.5% as of today). I wanted to know about Oregon for two reasons: 1) I was trying to figure out how Hillary could have ended up with 44% when she initially had like 2% in Salem and 2) because that last 5% of ballots might have gone all Bernie, which would have put him over 60% after all.

Someone has kindly shared the link to Real Clear Politics, and that site has been somewhat enlightening. I say somewhat because some of the delegate tallies include supers and some don't.

My original point still stands: as far as I can tell, virtually all of the "tilts" or "breaks" throughout this primary season have gone to Hillary. (At one point, I thought Nebraska was the lone exception, but that turned out to be an error on the Politico site.)

Interestingly enough, when the voters in the Southern primaries begin to weigh in (and Hillary was winning), the delegate count begins to track with the vote percentage. But by the time you hit Wisconsin and Michigan, all bets are off.

I am not going to pretend that I have an exhaustive knowledge of the current Democratic primary system. But when you are looking at the Republican primary totals and saying, "at least their process is transparent" you know you have a problem.

Clearly, I just don't get the math here.

(Mini rant: I'm a born and bred Democrat, this is definitely not my first Presidential primary, and I had no trouble keeping up with the fun and games in 2008. But this is the first time I've been made to feel that 1) my vote shouldn't count because NY has already voted and it's all over and 2)the DNC could give a rat's ass about what's important to me.)

After seeing the lazy way that the delegate numbers (pledged and supers) are organized on the different sites, I'd be surprised if anyone could really tell you where Hillary's real number stands as of today. I think it's a complete mistake to count the supers toward the 2383 at this point, as they are in no way obligated to vote for Hillary (because they very well may not, especially if her poll numbers against The Great Pumpkin keep falling).

So calling Hillary the presumptive nominee after New Jersey closes on Tuesday? Could end up being a YUGE joke. Especially if three hours later the polls close in CA and Bernie is already ahead(millennials vote early too, don't forget).

[mmonk]

38. +1

[onenote]

41. You still don't get it do you? Your premise is flawed

Your premise is that the delegates are being allocated in a fashion that tilts them in Clinton's favor. You illustrate this with various examples. For example, because Sanders got 61.1 percent of the vote in the Washington primary, you believe he should have 57 of that state's 93 delegates. But only 77 of those delegates are pledged delegates that are allocated on a proportional basis. The remaining 16 are super delegates who are not bound by the results of the state's primary. Rather, they are free to decide who to support based on their own judgment. What informs that judgment varies individual to individual. It may be their own view of who is the best candidate. It may be their view of the candidate that best reflects their own positions. It may be loyalty to a candidate with whom they have a long relationship. It may be the will of the voters nationally. It may be a combination of some or all of the above or other factors. The supers exist to provide a modicum of control of the nominating process to the Democratic party establishment. That may sound nefarious, but it simply reflects a decision the party made in the 1980s (a decision in which Sanders advisor Tad Devine was a key participant).

Your problem with the process appears to be that the supers aren't allocated proportionately like the pledged delegates. But if the supers were allocated proportionately they would be superfluous. And the result would be the same as it is now: Sanders would be losing by over 250 delegates (in fact, if the supers were simply treated as pledged delegates bound by the proportional results of their state's primary/caucus, Clinton's lead among such pledged delegates would be somewhat higher than it is now. Clinton would be roughly 330 delegates shy of the 2383 needed to win. There are around 930 delegates still unclaimed (assuming that all the supers from states that have had primaries or caucuses were allocated on a proportional basis along with the pledged delegates). Clinton needs less than 36% of those delegates to clinch.

In other words, even under your preferred approach, Sanders loses decisively.

Finally, you seem to think that maybe the repubs approach is better. That approach doesn't have supers. All delegates are awarded on either a proportional or winner take all basis, with 11 states using the winner take all approach thus far (a couple of states that use the WTA approach haven't voted yet). If the Democrats applied WTA in those same 11 states, Clinton would have won all the delegates in 8 of them. Under the Democrats proportional plus super delegates approach in those states, Clinton has 594 delegates to 421 for Sanders, a margin of 173. But if the Democrats had used the repubs approach in those states, Clinton would have 863 delegates to only 185 for Sanders, a 678 delegate margin.

So ask yourself, compared to the republican approach, who is the beneficiary of the Democrats approach, Clinton or Sanders.

[GoneFishin]

42. Right wingers like to argue down in the weeds where they can double talk everyone into exhaustion.

They have successfully cheated so many ways, with the support of the DNC infrastructure, as to make a precise audit impossible. That information would be nice to nail down. But the big picture can be just as important, like the fact that chaos at the polling locations always favors Hillary. If someone flips a coin 10 times and it comes up heads all 10 times, in a row, I will know they are cheating even if I don't know exactly how. If they insist on citing probability theory about each flip being independent, blah, blah, blah, then they are choosing to crawl around in the weeds because they are wrong and they are counting on muddling the argument.

Hillary is cheating. No doubt about it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

43. "Hillary is cheating. No doubt about it."

The Warriors cheated last night:



http://www.nba.com/games/20160602/CLEGSW/gameinfo.html?ls=eref:google:1b:post



The Warriors cheated when they won an NBA record 73 games:



http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/warriors/2016/04/14/warriors-get-73rd-win-set-nba-record/83018630/


See how intelligent you sound, sport.

[tk2kewl]

39. One for you... and one, two for me

[Nye Bevan]

46. If you want to decide the nominee based upon total votes cast for each candidate,

leaving delegates out of the equation entirely, I would be fine with that.

[nbsmom]

47. I'd have no problem with that either

What will work, though? One national primary in the spring, followed by the general election held over a week in the fall?

The current system clearly isn't working. We're spending ridiculous amounts of money on this horse race approach. 50+ sets of rules, determined by the two major parties, but paid for with tax dollars by each state.

We deserve better than settling for the people who started out with the greatest name recognition. I mean, really. The Great ? The Woman Who Would Be Henry Kissinger's BFF?

You know what's kind of funny/ironic? All of the Democratic candidates (and a hefty percentage of the Republican ones, too) regularly head out to CA (and send emails to CA residents) to raise their funds so they can run in PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES HELD EARLIER IN THE SEASON.

But even though CA is treated as the ATM for the rest of the country, and has made the fiscally prudent choice of holding just one primary and one general election, we're told that nope, our votes don't matter because New York voted and that's it, suckers.

I have given a lot of money over the years to a bunch of Dem causes. But I think I'm done.

[Orangepeel]

48. Delegates aren't awarded statewide. They are awarded based on congressional districts

Or maybe some states use precincts or counties. I don't know exactly, because each state decided for themselves.

Not every district will have the same number of delegates to award because they are different sizes and have varying numbers of democratic voters.

In Minnesota, Bernie took 61.6% statewide, but it wasn't the same in every district. He got more in some districts and less in others. If he got a lower percentage in a district that had more delegates to award, he'd end up with less than the statewide percentage would predict, and vise versa.

Also, your numbers According to the NY Times site, there were 77 delegates awarded in Minnesota. Bernie got 46 and Hillary got 31.

Democratic Caucuses

Sanders won Minnesota, according to A.P.
CANDIDATES VOTE PCT. DELEGATES
Bernie Sanders
118,135 61.6% 46
Hillary Clinton 73,510 38.4 31
Rocky De La Fuente 1 0.0 —
Martin O'Malley 0 0.0 —
Other 1 0.0 —
191,647 votes, 90% reporting (3,691 of 4,109 precincts)

Winner called by A.P.