Did you know this? "Iowa’s Undemocratic Caucuses"

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT op-ed: Iowa’s Undemocratic Caucuses
By GILBERT CRANBERG, HERB STRENTZ and GLENN ROBERTS
Published: December 18, 2007

Des Moines

....Democrats shun public disclosure of voter preferences at their caucuses — something not generally reported by the press or understood by the public.

An early order of business in each Democratic precinct caucus in Iowa is a count of the candidate preferences of the attendees. For all practical purposes, this is just what the polls try to measure. But Iowa Democrats keep the data hidden. The one-person, one-vote results from each caucus are snail-mailed to party headquarters and placed in a database, never disclosed to the press or made available for inspection.

Instead, the Democratic Party releases the percentage of “delegate equivalents” won by each candidate. The percentage broadcast on the networks and reported in the newspapers is the candidate’s share of the 2,500 delegates the party apportions across Iowa’s 99 counties, based on Democratic voter turnout in each of the 1,784 precincts in the two most recent general elections. So, the turnout for a candidate in a precinct caucus could be huge, yet the candidate’s share of the delegate pie could be quite small — if that precinct had low voter turnout in 2004 and 2006.

Under the formulas used to apportion delegates, it is possible that the candidate with the highest percentage of delegate equivalents — that is, the headline “winner” — did not really lead in the “popular vote” at the caucuses. Further, it is possible that a second or third-tier candidate could garner a surprising 10 percent or 12 percent of the popular vote statewide and get zero delegates. (That’s because to be in the running for a delegate a candidate must have support from at least 15 percent of the people at a precinct caucus.) He or she may have done two or three times as well as expected among Iowa’s Democratic voters and get no recognition for it....

***

Presidential primaries produce counts of how people actually voted. Iowa’s Democratic caucuses do not.

As nongovernmental organizations, political parties are free to adopt whatever rules they favor. But the press does not have to be a party’s silent partners. The news media need to quit tolerating the practice of denying the public access to factual information about how much support each Democratic candidate actually has on caucus night....

(Gilbert Cranberg is a former editor of the editorial page of The Des Moines Register. Herb Strentz is a former executive secretary of Iowa’s Freedom of Information Council. Glenn Roberts is a former director of research for The Register.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/opinion/18cranberg.html

[durrrty libby]

1. K for later

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. It is said that Edwards' rural support is worth much more than the more urban/suburban support of

Clinton and Obama because of the way regions are weighted

We will see how it all shakes out.

[silverojo]

5. Oh, please-please-please!

Too bad there's not a "crossing fingers" emoticon. :)

[kurth]

3. "The press inflates the significance of the Iowa event beyond recognition."

- Gilbert Cranberg, "Did Clinton Bet Wrong on Iowa?"
http://blog.niemanwatchdog.org/?p=169

[Hobarticus]

4. Zoinks, Scoob...I smell a mystery!

And they're sniffing around based on...what?

If reporters don't have access to local caucus raw results...that means what, exactly?

[DeepModem Mom]

6. a.m. kick

[MethuenProgressive]

7. Let's support bringing Democracy to Iowa!

The Iowa caucus has little, if anything, to do with Democracy.
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Unless Richardson breaks into the top three, that is.
:evilgrin:

[robcon]

8. Iowa has been irrelevant for a long time.

Iowa has had little impact on determining the candidate. Except in the press.

[MaineDem]

9. This is misleading

First of all, the 15% threshold applies to ALL states not just Iowa.

The allocation of delegates happens in all states as well. The primary is just the first step - delegates are allocated based on the results. Those candidates who don't reach 15% will not be allocated delegates.

This article is way misleading.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. I think one part of the piece that's new to me is that we don't know the results --

apparently neither we nor the candidates know how well they did, nor will we ever know, according to the writers.

[Debi]

11. That's right, Iowa is a caucus not a primary

never meant to be a primary and never will be a primary. Iowa determines presidential preference by the electorate as a whole not based on one single voter. As soon as the press and posters here understand that the better. Iowa is not a primary.

On edit:

The caucuses were designed to build consensus and to build the party - the presidential preference part is a very small part of the process (yet the only one reported by the press) - the party nor it's supporters should be beholden to the media or any other reporting group. Providing initial support reporting would make the caucuses a primary which it is not AND when a person signs in to the caucuses it is not mandatory for them to list their presidential preference, it is a voluntary option. Since a person cannot vote for 'undecided' in a primary, reporting initial preference would create a false primary report.

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Thanks so much for this info, and your input, Debi! nt