A few real problems with the Iowa Caucus

[dsc]

One is the bizarre way extra delegates were awarded. The Dubuque caucus illustrates the problem with this.

They had 210 total attendees. 110 for Kerry, 43 for Edwards, and 39 for Dean. The rest were not viable. This caucus got 11 delegats. The percents were 52.4%, 20.5%, 18.6%. Adjusted to eliminate the unviable people yields 57.3%, 22.4%, and 20.3%. So a totally fair allocation of the 11 delegates would be 6.3, 2.46, 2.23. Of course they can't allocate partial delegates. The first round they allocated by the first set of percentages. 5.76, 2.25, 2.04 which rounding made 6, 2, and 2. So far so good. But one delegate was left. Most systems would have either assigned one delegate as uncommitted or given it to Kerry who had won the caucus. Instead it was assigned to Edwards due to a rule stating that it had to go to the group which was closest to .5 without being over it. Thus they awarded 6 to Kerry, 3 to Edwards and 2 to Dean. Or 54.54% to Kerry, 27.27% to Edwards and 18.18% for Dean. Instead of 63.63% for Kerry, and 18.18% for each of Edwards and Dean. The second senario is fairer since Kerry did actually win here. He should have his votes counting the most. Instead they count the second most. Since this was pretty arbitrary I have no idea who this helped over all or even if one candidate benefited from it. It just seems like an arbitrary way to do things.

The cell phones should be banned. This could lead to all kinds of problems and just looks bad. It looked to all the world like vote swaping could have been going on. It was unseemly.

Third, Clark and Lieberman missed a golden opportunity here. They should have gone to these things and tried to get people into uncommitted blocks. At this caucus they could have formed with the stubborn Kucinich and Gephardt people to have been a viable uncommitted block. Since only one of those four are likely to be in until the end it could have gotten a delegate without having campaigned. (there were about 9% who stayed unviable but more would have done so if they had an option IMO).

Fourth, More time should have been given for the trading if this was going to go one. I felt very sorry for that Kucinich guy who just lost it at the end. Had he been given more time he might have done OK.

[Clark Can WIN]

1. funny we didn't hear all this Iowa caucus bashing 2 days ago

and funny it's all coming from one perspective.

[funky_bug]

2. And if Clark had gone to Iowa

...then people would be fuming and screaming at him for taking away delegates when he "didn't even bother to campaign there."

That being said, I thought the caucus coverage on CSPAN was scary. Only Kerry was viable, then some uncommitted went to Edwards, then the Dean lady was begging a Kucinich to come to her corner (promising him a delegate) which made him viable... then the poor Gephart girls begging the Kucinich kid to come to her corner, and storming away when he said he wasn't switching his vote as a matter of principle...

I know they like the caucus in Iowa, but MAN it wasn't pretty. I much prefer the lever-thank-you-very-much.

[meegbear]

3. Exactly ...

I wonder how much "relevance" NH will have?

[dsc]

5. It is obvious you didn't read my post

My first, and biggest point, didn't affect my candidate at all there, and I have no clue if elsewhere. And both problems 3 and 4 very well may have helped my candidate at that caucus. But, go ahead and pretend I said something else if it makes you feel good. Oh and I had no idea they would have that bizarre allocation scheme and if you can show me where that was widely reported on I will admit I missed it.

[auburnblu]

13. I will bash the caucus process at every opportunity

After all of the speeches on the love for the common man by the candidates. Well about about these same candidates pressing to do away with a caucus process that disenfranchises these voters.

[ajacobson]

4. Uncommitted blocks

you're absolutely right, big opportunity missed. I think the problem is the Iowa caucuses are so weird (i.e. unlike other contests in the race) that quirks like that may not be obvious.

But then again, Gephardt's big strength was supposed to be his seasoned organization. It didn't deliver.

[AP]

6. Comments:

- on average, across the state, all the candidates benefit equally from the rounding. So Edwards benefited in one of 1993 caucuses. I'm sure rounding cost him a delegate someplace else. The final delegate count was what? 20, 18, 7? And their vote percentages were 38:32:18? It looks like there's a bias toward magnifying your delegate count if you win by more votes, which, I presume is caused be the fact that the winners tend to get at least one delegate in many caucuses, whereas Dean for instance probably missed the threshold in many districts and might have gotten 0 in districts where he was close.

- I'm all for giving voters as much info as possible. I don't like the media spinning elections as being over so don't bother voting. But in a vote like this I think it helps to give people full info about how things were trending, and to realign support for maximum impact. What you saw was the live version of instant runoff voting, which all liberals should embrace.

- You can give more time, but the real problem is if you don't know how it works when you go in you aren't prepared for what's going to happen. It would be great if people went in knowing exactly what they needed to do. That Kucinich guy was phenomenal. So was the Gephardt woman (too bad she didn't' have a better candidate, and therefore, better ideas to sell). I think she went to Edwards, so she'll have those arguments and ideas now.

[dsc]

9. those percents weren't voters but delegates

Kerry got 38 percent of the delegates not the voters and same with the rest. I think, over all, it likely hurt your candidate but don't now for sure. I would think that he won more caucuses then Kerry did but that Kerry won bigger ones given the rural/urban split.

[AP]

19. What was the vote count?

I can see how they'd prefer a system which magnifies delegates as you get more votes.

That's the nature of the nominating process. The more you win by, the better a candidate you were, etc.

It also discourages a brockered convention which, on the one hand seems undemocratic, but, on the other hand, the last thing you want to do before going into the general election is to air your dirty laundry and reveal where all your fault lines are.

Better to rally around the guy who finished first most often.

[dsc]

23. but that isn't what they did

which is my point. Their system was completely arbitrary. Kerry deserved that 7th delegate. Instead it went to Edwards. And again, it is likely your candidate got hosed on that. In the example I gave the actual attendees were 52,20,19 while the delegates were reported as 55, 27, 18. (in terms of percent) The second set of numbers is what was factored in.

[dsc]

7. screw you all you win

I give up. Fuck me for even bothering to post something.

[AP]

8. Hey, I engaged. Before you give up, you can reply to my post.

No?

[dsc]

10. I just did

and thanks I hadn't seen it before I posted mine.

[sandnsea]

15. Hey, lighten up

It's foreign to us and unsuual. But it is getting a little strange. I've seen accusations that the computers were tampered with. That people were strong-armed. That Ted Kennedy went to ALL the caucuses and stood their while people voted. That Republicans went in to throw the election away from the dreaded Howard Dean. All kinds of crazy stuff. We're all just getting a little tired of it.

Your post doesn't seem to be along those lines and seems to just be looking at the math. I saw the C-Span program about the process and it made sense. I'm not a math person so I can't explain it, but it does make sense and the way the numbers are chosen is also reflective of the number of Democrats in each precinct etc. It seemed fair to me, even before the election last night.

[dsc]

18. Sorry but I do expect people to read first and answer second

The fact is, to my knowledge, not one report was posted here about this way of allocating delegates which was described as new at that caucus. So I couldn't comment on it as I didn't know about it. I would have said the same thing then as now. It is not how it works elsewhere.

[auburnblu]

11. The biggest real problems

Still only 20% of registered voters participated. That is not a huge turnout, what a horrible process where 20% participation is considered huge.

If you're a lower income person who works second shift, sorry, its very important for the elite of Iowa to feel all special and important, so lower income folks, you don't count as much.

We hear rant upon rant about voter intimidation of black folks in Florida, well how would you feel going into what resembled a white power rally if you were a minority. At the caucus C-Span showed I saw one black guy for a brief second, it sure as hell didn't seem like anyone was trying to get him engaged.

What about men and women fighting overseas. Sorry its important for the elite of Iowa to feel imporatnt and special, so no absentee vote for anyone in the military fighting overseas.

The causcus process is just a horrible process geared to disenfranchise the majority of voters and that to me is a huge problem.

[dsc]

14. some valid points

I don't know the minority percentage in Iowa but it is quite low. That one black may well have been proportional to that area. I never thought of the armed serivices thing but that is a very valid point. The lack of absentee ballots, especially for them, should be a constitutional problem. I wonder if that have ever been litigated. The second shift thing is also a problem but I would hope most employers would let people switch.

[sandnsea]

17. Democrats Abroad Caucuses

"Even though you live abroad, if you are a registered Democrat you can still participate in the Democratic Primary, through the Democrats Abroad caucuses on February 6-8."

http://www.johnkerry.com/communities/aok/

I don't know anything else about it. Just this.

[AP]

20. I sort of disagree. I think if these are the people who care the most and

are thinking hard about this, then this might be the right subsample to chose.

Also, I bet many unions make sure that their members get caucus night off.

[beyurslf]

22. Excellent point that I am glad someone brought up

I have a black friend in Council Bluffs. This was his first caucus to go to. He had no idea what it was about. He in the fire fighters union and they were supporting Kerry. We were talking yesterday afternoon and he said even though the union backed Kerry he was going to vote for Dean and just say he voted for Kerry.

HE HAD NO IDEA IT WAS NOT A PRIVATE VOTE. I explained how the caucuses worked and that you publically declare for a candidate. He said he would probably have to support Kerry then.

Afterwards, he said he did caucus for Kerry and he was ok with it. He did say he liked Kerry but he had just leaned a little more toward Dean. He said he was the only Black man at his caucus and they were "weird." He didn't think he would want to do another.

I really don't know why they can't have a primary vote. Shouldn't it be a private choice... and available all day and not just that evening. What do police, nurses, doctors, janitors, transit workers, airline employees, fast food staff, wait staff, retail staff do? Many many many people work evenings.

[mohc]

12. Delegate allocation

That's pretty much the standard way representation is broken down whenever percentages have to be translated into whole persons. Allocation of Representatives/Electoral Votes based on the census work this way. Assigning of the delegate counts per state for the national conventions work this way, and so did the Iowa Caucus.

The standard allocation works like this:
1. Determine the percentage of votes each candidate gets (in this case at precinct level)
2. Multiply that percentage by the number of delegates (or representatives) available.
3. Assign a delegate to candidates based on whole numbers, no rounding occurs.
4. Subtract the number of assigned delegates from available to get the leftover count.
5. Assign the remaining delegates based on fractional portion in order of highest to lowest until none are remaining.

As you saw it is very possible for a candidate deserving less than half of a delegate over some whole amount to get an extra delegate, and in some cases a candidate will deserve .9 over some whole number and NOT get an extra delegate (this would happen if there were only one leftover delegate and some other candidate had .95 over some whole number, just as an example).

[dsc]

16. but that isn't what they did.

They did round off or Kerry wouldn't have gotten his 6th delegate. Then they used the method I described. I still think a winner take extra system if fairer due to the fact the winner should be rewarded.

[mohc]

21. Umm..

From your post the "fair" allocation is 6.3, 2.46, 2.23.

From there you take whole portions, so: Kerry 6 Edwards 2 Dean 2

Then you take the sum allocated: 6 + 2 + 2 = 10.
Then you substract allocated from available: 11 - 10 = 1
Then you give remaining delegates based on fractional portions: Kerry .3 Edwards .46 Dean .23

Edwards wins the last delegate because .46 > .3 > .23

[dsc]

24. sorry I was unclear

the fair allocation is what the adjusted percents would have yielded. That isn't what they did. The used the unadjusted percentates and rounded first. Then they did the rest. They used 5.8. 2.25. and 2.04