More people attended Seattle Rally than voted - WTF?

[Equinox Moon]

UPDATE: by posting this tread, DU participants have taught me (us) that the "vote" count is not actually one person-one vote. MANY more people showed up to vote. 1000's! I am very pleased to learn this!!!
Thanks for teaching!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I am watching the vote count on TheGuardian.com and I see with 72% reporting and he has 11,852 votes.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/mar/26/live-results-alaska-hawaii-washington-caucuses

People! You have to go vote and not just party at a rally. Good grief!!!!

The rally reports were 30,000 +
I would expect twice that number turn out to vote, because you were so inspired you brought a friend to vote!

Where is the dis-connect here? I don't understand the complacency. Bernie did well overall, but the votes should reflect the huge rally participation.

If you are one of those that went to the rally and did not vote, please tell us all why.

Dems! we need everyone of us to come out in November. This slacker voting thing is such a bummer.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

1. There are precinct delegate counts I think, not votes nt

[Equinox Moon]

2. Total Votes are being reported, check it out...

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/mar/26/live-results-alaska-hawaii-washington-caucuses

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

6. Can assure you that these are the precinct delegates awarded per county. Turnout in 100's of 1000's

See: 2008 Primary details (scroll up slightly for the caucus data)
That shows there are 32,000 precinct delegates up for grabs which is consistent with the total happening since majority of those delegates will be coming from King County's remaining precincts.

[Equinox Moon]

10. Wikipedia is an amazing resource

I see what you are showing me. I also see they are calling it "VOTES" in their reporting.

Not delegate totals.

I think Washington has a combo system of both caucus and primary on the same day. It is complicated I think.

Is anyone from Washington know about this?

[Gwhittey]

11. Most likely it is because

That page is just using a template to dynamically generate it and in template they had that as votes because of normal primaries.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

12. If you scroll up further on Wikipedia to the main header for the Democratic Primary

It says a secondary Democratic Primary was held at a later date but was not used to determine the delegates. This was separate from the Democratic Caucus.

[Equinox Moon]

22. "539 Votes" total in Alaska is not delegates,

it is individual person votes. Here is another source count:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/AK-D

This source also shows "votes" with a separate column for delegates.

I understand you are saying "Votes" does not mean votes, yet I don't see how that could be true.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

23. Nah, in this case the vote refers to precinct results

The other tab is for the estimate of the National delegate counts. After precinct delegates are awarded there are also district and state conventions.

I heard the Alaska turnout was ~10k people and 110% greater than 2008

edit: There is only today's caucus and then the state convention. Other states have County conventions as well.

[Equinox Moon]

25. OKAY, So I should take this thread down

since my rant is incorrect information.

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

26. I think it is helpful because...

This whole process is confusing; It is my first time following primaries and voting in one and it has been a very convoluted mess; But people on the reddit group helped clarify these things, and these are all estimates still too because things can shift slightly as the county and state conventions happen.

[Equinox Moon]

28. Okay, GeorgiaPeanuts

I will leave it up.

Peace

[jeff47]

3. It's a caucus. You had to be free at 10am today in order to vote.

And in previous caucuses (CO), the Clinton team stalled for hours with recounts and other parliamentary maneuvers.

There's a lot of people who can't give an unknown number of hours starting at 10am on a Saturday. WA has a way to mail-in a vote, but I don't know how many people know about it - and the mail-in form was due weeks ago.

[eridani]

9. Or you could have turned in a surrogate affidavit form

All caucuses at my area were done by 12pm, and some left earlier than that.

[jeff47]

13. If you 1) knew your schedule weeks ago

and 2) knew who you wanted to vote for weeks ago.

(Can't wait for mail-in voting to be taken up by more states)

[eridani]

16. An unpredicatble schedule is a perfectly good reason for an affidavit n/t

[jeff47]

17. Sometimes, you don't know it's going to be unpredictable.

Point being, caucuses make it harder to vote, and that affects turnout. It really is too bad the WA Democratic party went to court to keep them.

[panader0]

18. What you and eridani are saying....while true, upsets me.

What should the simple casting of a vote, the very heart and soul of democracy, be so
convoluted? I hope that we can have a simpler system, a system where supers votes
don't count as much as 10,000 regular peons.

[jeff47]

19. Exactly.

If we have to keep vote-in-person elections, they need to be two days, probably Saturday and Sunday, and all employers are required to give at least one of those days off.

But it probably would be easier to move to a mail-in ballot system like Oregon.

I'd also like to see a "none of the above" option that triggered a new election if it wins.

[eridani]

21. You forget that WA State has no registration by party

The caucus form requires you to state that you are a Democrat, meaning that Repubs messing with the process is significantly reduced.

[LiberalArkie]

4. Plus a lot of young kids, a lot of people not registered to vote but wanted to be there. What

someone worry about is Bill Clinton only pulling in 300 people.

[agracie]

7. Where was that ?

[LiberalArkie]

8. I read it a couple of days ago, the big dawg isn't pulling them in like he used to. But no one

is packing them in like Bernie. If Bernie doesn't pull it off, this kind of thing might not happen for another 50 years. I think everyone knows that.

[LiberalElite]

5. I wouldn't assume they're all Dems - they

may be disaffected Americans who never bothered to align themselves with either party. I don't think it's complacency. IMO it's chronic noninvolvement with the system because "why bother?"

[questionseverything]

14. pretty sure those are delegates not votes

[Jenny_92808]

15. We must all

make the extra effort because our freedom and rights are at stake.

Please vote people! Even when they make it hard to vote!
[IMG][/IMG]

[roody]

20. Not everyone that attends a rally is eligible to vote.

[Cassiopeia]

24. People probably came from all over the state and from many different precincts.

To see Bernie at that event.

[TexasBushwhacker]

27. Per the Seattle Times turnout may top 2008

when it was 250K. They said groups were spilling out to parking lots. I guess those numbers are delegate equivalents or something. Read here:

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/bernie-sanders-headed-for-big-win-in-washington-caucuses/

[eridani]

29. How 65 voters results in 5 Sanders delegates and one Clinton delegate

In my precinct, 10 voted for Clinton out of 65 (including surrogate affidavits). The precinct was allotted 6 delegates, so 10/65 x 6 = 0.92, round off to 1

45 voted for Sanders, so 55/65 x 6 = 5.08, or 5 delegates.

[Autumn Colors]

30. Were there children in the rally audience?

Pretty sure they wouldn't be able to vote.