WWTBAM Bored

Interesting article in fivethirtyeight.com about how the Iowa caucuses work and how votes will be counted tonight. It makes the NFL tiebreaker rules seem like first grade math in comparison.
This year, for the first time, Iowa will keep track of three different voting totals, only one of which will matter for assigning delegates. All of this occurs in the open, so everyone knows who everyone else is voting for, and people can try to persuade others to join them up until the final tally.

1) When people arrive at the precinct, they will physically gather in one location for their particular candidate. There is also an area for unaffiliated voters to gather. This becomes the basis of the first voting total.

2) At this point, voters can realign. A candidate must have 15% (or more in some smaller precincts) to be viable. Voters whose candidates did not get 15% (or unaffiliated voters) can then realign (or go home if they don't like any of the remaining choices). They can either join another candidate who isn't viable to make him or her viable (Klobuchar voters might go to Buttgieg to put him over the 15% threshold) or join one of the candidates already over 15% (those Klobuchar voters might join Biden instead). Candidates who are already over 15%, however, can't lose voters. When this round is over, the remaining candidates will all be over the 15% threshold. This becomes the basis of the second voting total. It's very possible that a candidate who is the second choice among supporters of minor candidates could jump up considerably in percentages in this second round.

3) The vote totals in this second round are then translated into delegate totals by a system that's based on weighing precincts based on the number of votes Hillary Clinton received in 2016 and the Democratic candidate for governor received in 2018 in each precinct. As a practical matter, this means that smaller, more rural precincts may have greater weight than their total number of actual voters might suggest. In past caucuses, this was the only tally that was officially recorded and broadcast on the various news outlets.

This convoluted process is one reason that accurately forecasting the results is a very iffy proposition. It also means that unless a candidate either runs away with the votes or bombs out entirely, everyone will probably have some "good" numbers to point to.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ho ... -who-wins/

Apparently the new app they developed in Iowa to report the results is on the fritz and they are having trouble reconciling the three sets of numbers they have.

Ain't technology wonderful? One reason I still use my trusty old flip phone.

SSS>>>"One reason I still use my trusty old flip phone".<<<

There are a few of us around yet. My kids call mine my burner phone.

Spock wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 04, 2020 9:03 am

SSS>>>"One reason I still use my trusty old flip phone".<<<

There are a few of us around yet. My kids call mine my burner phone.

I tell everyone at work that I wanted to use the same phone the drug dealers use to boost my street cred.

Time to bring in a pro:

Colorado's caucus system isn't quite as complicated as Iowa's but it still involves the 15% threshold and possible realigning if your candidate doesn't make it.

As of 2020, caucuses are only for U.S. Senator down through County Commissioner. We have joined the Super Tuesday states on March 3 for Presidential primary. Delegates will be allocated proportionally according to the March 3 voting. Sanders folkses are thrilled. They insist, and they were right, that the Colorado party establishment was weighted heavily for Clinton in 2016.

This year, Colorado gets 80 delegates to the National Convention. 67 of the 80 delegates are pledged to presidential contenders based on the results of the voting in the Colorado Presidential Primary. The remaining 13 are unpledged and consist of 6 Democratic National Committee members, 5 Members of Congress (1 Senator and 4 Representatives), 1 Governor, and 1 Distinguished Party Leader (former DNC Chairman Roy Romer).

Regardless of how happy the Sanders supporters are now, I predict they will do the same thing this time that they did last. When Sanders doesn't get the nomination, they will vanish into the woodwork.

The caucus organizers bit off more than they could chew. All those analytics, once they're available, will help guide strategy in future caucuses, but we didn't get the quick results that the 24-hour news cycle craves.

Trump frequently observes that high-tech gadgetry has lots of bells and whistles but often doesn't work as well as tried-and-true methods. He's right in the case of voting. When the mechanical lever machines I grew up with became obsolete, we got fancy touch screens, but now we're back to secure paper ballots.

The caucus organizers bit off more than they could chew. All those analytics, once they're available, will help guide strategy in future caucuses, but we didn't get the quick results that the 24-hour news cycle craves.

We tried something in Colorado one year, and it worked fine. However, the state party requested only the results of the preference poll. Ten seconds per precinct, and it was done.

This year, they're asking for the same info as Iowa, but it will be on a piece of paper turned in by the delegate and entered in the State Dem voter database by fools excellent volunteers the next day. The only info they'll get caucus night will be preference poll totals for the U.S. Senate race.

SportsFan68 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:17 pm

The caucus organizers bit off more than they could chew. All those analytics, once they're available, will help guide strategy in future caucuses, but we didn't get the quick results that the 24-hour news cycle craves.

We tried something in Colorado one year, and it worked fine. However, the state party requested only the results of the preference poll. Ten seconds per precinct, and it was done.

This year, they're asking for the same info as Iowa, but it will be on a piece of paper turned in by the delegate and entered in the State Dem voter database by fools excellent volunteers the next day. The only info they'll get caucus night will be preference poll totals for the U.S. Senate race.

The whole idea of a caucus is flawed. It dispenses with the secret ballot, which allows intimidation or more subtle forms of coercion, and it also requires a large investment of time, which penalizes those who can't block out that much time on one particular evening. Turnout at the Iowa caucuses this year is about one-quarter of the number of people who voted Democratic in the last governor's election in 2018.

When I vote in next month's primary in Georgia, I'll be in and out of there in five minutes, and half that time will be spent walking to and from my car.

DNC chair calls for immediate 'recanvass' of Iowa after botched caucus: 'Enough is enough'

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/06/dnc-cha ... aucus.html

silverscreenselect wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2020 5:12 am

SportsFan68 wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 05, 2020 11:17 pm

The caucus organizers bit off more than they could chew. All those analytics, once they're available, will help guide strategy in future caucuses, but we didn't get the quick results that the 24-hour news cycle craves.

We tried something in Colorado one year, and it worked fine. However, the state party requested only the results of the preference poll. Ten seconds per precinct, and it was done.

This year, they're asking for the same info as Iowa, but it will be on a piece of paper turned in by the delegate and entered in the State Dem voter database by fools excellent volunteers the next day. The only info they'll get caucus night will be preference poll totals for the U.S. Senate race.

The whole idea of a caucus is flawed. It dispenses with the secret ballot, which allows intimidation or more subtle forms of coercion, and it also requires a large investment of time, which penalizes those who can't block out that much time on one particular evening. Turnout at the Iowa caucuses this year is about one-quarter of the number of people who voted Democratic in the last governor's election in 2018.

When I vote in next month's primary in Georgia, I'll be in and out of there in five minutes, and half that time will be spent walking to and from my car.

The large investment of time is a huge factor. SteelersFan noted that I've spent about 10 hours already on the local caucus, where he will spend about five minutes total on his Presidential primary ballot.

It's just a matter of where the time and money are spent. The candidates on Colorado's Presidential primary ballot have obtained 5,000 signatures on petitions and paid a filing fee. The election will cost about $6 million, then another $6 million June 30. Up to 2020, the Presidential process was in with the caucus process for everybody else, virtually all of the costs borne by the parties. This is a good system for the candidates. Instead of beating the bushes for petition signatures, they can spend that time fundraising, garnering endorsements, talking to voters, traveling the district meeting with editorial boards, and on and on.

Saying that the idea of a caucus is flawed ignores what many of us admire about its most obvious benefit -- the idea of the grassroots effort involved in supporting candidates and issues at the most basic level. I'm not sorry to lose that aspect of the Presidential campaign, but I would miss it grievously if I couldn't have the opportunity to meet everyone from commissioners to U.S. senators in the caucus/assembly process.