WHY? WHY? WHY? In Nevada: "Uncommitted": 31 votes; Kucinich: 4 votes

:wtf:

?

Wonder if Dennis will ask for a recount in Nevada too.

Uncommitted had lots of momentum coming out of Michigan.

Hasn't seen "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" and doesn't know UFO's are real.

In my caucus, there were only Clinton, Obama & Edwards supporters - no one else.

About 500 for Clinton, 300 for Obama and 10 or 6 for Edwards with 2 uncommitted.

5 Edwards moved to Obama - don't know what happened to the others...

Many people just left the caucus rather than vote a second round.

I'm surprised Kucinich had any votes...disappointed, too...

133 people in the precinct caucus.

15% rule said 20 people were needed for a candidate (or uncommitted) to reach the "viability threshold" (I call it the "ah, shucks! you've been disenfranchised - and we don't have a parting gift for you, either, threshold.")

10 people stood for Edwards.

3 stood for Kucinich.

2 stood for uncommitted.

There had been 4 uncommitted - they went from group to group before the first count, asking why they should support that candidate. The Obama supporters (who were right behind us) were the last they spoke to, and they were told "go ahead and stand with us for the first vote and then if you change your mind you can move." Two of the uncommitted voters stayed after they heard that little number. Too bad it wasn't true, but hey! What's a little fib among friends? (To be fair, I suspect that the people in the group did not realise they were giving incorrect information - but they weren't willing to discuss it with us, so I'm not sure.)

So, anyway (back to the point):
If you add up the 10 and the 3 and the 2 you get 15. Not 20. We wouldn't have made the "viability threshold" in any configuration. I stuck around long enough to determine that no bolt of lightning was going to vaporise enough of the other people to lower the threshold - and to get an earful from some blithering idiot who demanded I switch to Hillary because "she won twice in New York!" That's nice, but this is Nevada.

So, why stay? It took our precinct almost 2 hours - just to get to the first "vote." A total clusterf*$k. No way was I going to be lured to one of the other camps. I made up my mind about my candidate after careful consideration, not by tossing a coin - having some stranger trying to sell me their candidate with slick patter that would have done a used car salesman proud wasn't going to change it.

I am extremely distressed with this process. Those of you who believe the caucus system is better than one person/one ballot are entitled to feel that way. I feel disenfranchised. My voice was silenced. My "vote" made not one whit of difference. It couldn't be combined with other precincts, because it wasn't important enough to survive. I am left to wonder if I had been in a different precinct, would it have counted? Would there have been just that critical minimum number to tell the Party that my voice counts, too?

Who knows.

I won't bother with this again.

Even if you had a primary, it doesn't sound like there were enough Edwards supporters in your district for Edwards to get any delegates. This way, you had a second chance to pick a candidate, even though you decided not to take it (which is your right).

In late February, I'll go to my state's primary and vote for Edwards. I hope he'll get more than 15% in my congressional district, but if he doesn't, he won't get any delegates from my district. I'll be just as "disenfranchised" as you. In November, I'll go to the polls and vote for the Democratic nominee. Fortunately, I live in a blue state so that candidate will probably get my state's electoral votes. But those who vote for the republican nominee won't get any electoral votes. Will they be "disenfranchised"?

You have every right to be disappointed. I'm very disappointed in the results, too. But, I don't see how checking out of the process is the answer.

I'm pulling this from Wikipedia, not because I love it as a source, but because the sentence is succinct.

From the entry on the word "disenfranchisement":

Briefly, electoral college supporters feel that strict majority vote would disfranchise the mostly rural American West, by denying them the ability to ever influence an election due to their small numbers. This would be unintentional disfranchisement as it is an effect of the change, not a direct goal of the change in voting law.

Now, turn that argument on it's head. Because of the way the majority of states allocate electoral votes, the "losing" candidate receives NO opportunity to compete in the electoral contest. The voters who supported that candidate have been, at that point, effectively disenfranchised.

Note that it isn't about whether or not they were allowed to cast a vote - it's about whether or not the system is set up in a way that gives every voter's vote equal weight. If you hamstring the process (in this case by the electoral college) you are, in effect, saying that not every vote has equal weight. If it did, then you would see a percentage system rather than a winner-take-all system.

So, to answer part of your question: yes, those voters are disenfranchised.

I have voted for the Democratic candidate since I was 18 years old (a long time ago). I have watched my vote be cast aside like a used tissue, many, many times - particularly when I have lived, as I do now, in a state that runs just a little bit more red than blue.

This is the first time I have participated in a caucus and I don't see any difference between what happened today and what happens every four years. My "vote" - my VOICE - was tossed aside. My "option" was to give the support I gave to my choice to someone else. Why would I do that, in this case? This wasn't about worrying that a Republican might take the state - it was, presumably, about telling the Party what I thought. But because of the way the system is set-up, I couldn't even do that. I wasn't "viable."

Funny that. When someone tells me my opinion is irrelevant I tend to have less respect for theirs. That's what the caucus did for me. Made me respect the Party a lot less.

The caucusing seems to be highly manipulative.

??? Care to explain your statement.

(No I am not a Kuch supporter but that is not why people want to see him shut out, most Americans have an authoritarian, anti-progressive, "protect us" mentality and liberals like Kuch actually anger them. Always have.)

If you have never seen Nevada (outside of Las Vegas) you wouldn't understand. It's really like another planet there. And not because of Area 51, or because the landscape actually resembles the surface of Mars.

:wtf:

Dennis is anti-war. Hillary apparently won the caucus. She supports the PNAC war agenda. Seems logical to me.

Hmmm....

That's how it turned out in ours -- he had 3 people supporting him, not enough to be a viable groups. Edwards didn't either. Obama and Clinton had the largest groups.

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out of over 100 who were in Kucinich's group on the first alignment. When we realigned, these 3 had to go to a viable group. The only two viable groups were Obama and Clinton. Edwards had 11 people on the first alignment, and he and Kucinich didn't have enough people to be viable from the start.

At the second alignment, we had hoped the Edwards and Kucinich groups could form one group, but even adding everyone from these two groups didn't allow this group to be viable. So, everyone in Kucinich or Edwards had to realign with Obama or Clinton, or leave. Two people left. Several other people stayed and realigned with Obama, a couple realigned with Clinton. The biggest discussion, and it wasn't really even peer pressure, was for a few voters who couldn't decide between Obama and Clinton. They had Clinton and Obama people trying to convince them to join their group. A discussion occurred for 15 minutes before we realigned and settled our two remaining groups.


Does this help?

On edit, if you apply similar scenarios to other precincts, it can answer why the uncommitted is actually higher than the Kucinich tallies. It's not a one to one vote -- it's a caucus with fractional numbers and formulas to decide which viable group wins the delegate.

On edit again, where are you getting these numbers? -- these aren't "votes", I don't think. Are these percentages or delegates? Are you getting them on line or watching tv?

The actual voter counts were not on the site at the time. BTW, is this thing about Obama getting more delegates true?

What site are you using to get the numbers -- I've got two up now.

I don't have access to tv now -- my FIL says the numbers they're using on CNN/MSNBC are confusing, because he thinks they are delegate numbers but are being presented as voter numbers.

Anyway, thanks!

Did Obama actually win the delegates?

If the Nation, where that was originally posted, is referring to the weighting of delegates for the rurals and at large caucuses, it is my understanding that that weighting occurs in the beginning of the mathematical equation (for example, in the rural precincts, it takes 5 people to get one delegate and in the larger city precincts, it takes 50 people for one delegate -- those numbers may not be accurate, but I'm using them for the sake of discussion). That would mean that the numbers we are seeing have already been weighted and that Clinton won one more delegate than Obama.

I read somewhere that MSNBC reported that Obama has one more than Hillary. :shrug:

?

"...party leaders put out a statement saying Obama’s camp was flat wrong..."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2724016&mesg_id=2724016

It leads me to believe that Derby -- the Chair of the NV State Dem Party -- is standing by the original numbers with Clinton at 13 and Obama at 12. But, MSNBC and CNN both show Obama at 13 and Clinton at 12.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21229219
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#NV

I really don't know yet and I will continue to try to find out.

This lady seems to be a pretty good resource for our local politics:

http://www.rgj.com/blogs/inside-nevada-politics/

E

That's your why.

We have a winner!!

But why the uncommitteds?

don't tase me bro is now standard for all polls

:)

I'll have to add it.

every time I see that...I know it is rude to laugh but it is in our vernacular now. My 86 year old Grandpa even uses the phrase in correct context.

The reason why this Bush administration doesn't worry about how history will treat them is because THEY CONTROL HOW HISTORY IS REFLECTED via their corporacrats who provide the tests and books and decide WHAT will be taught.

It's always been that way,...until recently,...when people had greater opportunity to collect information. That technology is being far more quickly deconstructed than you and I realize but, trust me, our following generations are witnessing it and will kick their heals.

Sometimes, most of the time, the obvious progressions take far more time than necessary but become real in spite of all obstacles. If one reflects on merely a century of human struggle, advances are occurring on a faster pace than ever before.

So, be peaceful.