AGAIN Clinton supporters- The popular vote is meaningless.

[Yotun]

Seeing as this argument is resurfacing, I'll repost something I posted some time ago, edited and augmented a bit, to try and rebury this argument!

The popular vote is MEANINGLESS. The ONLY metric that counts ACTUAL popular support is the pledged delegates.

This is not similar to the 2000 election, because here we have both caucus and primary states.

Let's expain this again in an easy to understand manner:

Say you have 2 states. They both have equal sizes, and the same population. One has a primary, the other a caucus.
One candidate wins the primary state by 46-54. The other wins the caucus state 15-85.
Due to the nature of caucuses and primaries, the candidate who won the primary nets 25000 popular votes lead.
The candidate who won the caucus nets 2500 popular votes. Even though BOTH states are the same size.

The candidate who won the primary CLEARLY has the popular vote lead, even though the candidate who won the caucus state is clearly the most popular in the overall electorate of the two states combined. Popular vote does NOT reflect the will of the people.

That's not all. You could win a blowout in a huge state with caucuses, and lose by a tiny margin in a small state with primaries, and even though you are the most popular, if you use the popular vote metric, you are still behind. You could win 10 caucus states, and lose the popular vote metric if you lose a single primary!

The popular vote is meaningless because the nature of primaries and caucuses means the turnouts are vastly different. You cannot just add the votes together. This is as logical as stating that a candidate who has won the most states is the most popular.

What you need is a system which delegates representation of support to each candidate according to the size of the state and the way the state has voted, whether in primary or caucus. Such a system would flatten out the discrepancies in turnouts due to different electoral systems. You need something like... pledged delegates!

Pledged delegates are the ONLY metric which accurately reflects the popular support of the people in a contest with BOTH primaries and caucuses. The popular vote is completely, absolutely, totally, meaningless and insignificant.

Let's say this again. The popular vote is a completely MEANINGLESS metric.

This is NOT similar to 2000, because a general election does NOT have caucuses, and all states vote in a prety similar fashion. There are no states with caucuses where the popular vote metric becomes meaningless due to the very nature of the process. There are no discrepancies in turnouts due to the nature of the contests. So the popular vote becomes a metric of common nature in all states, that can be used to measure support.

Obama is not winning the pledged delegates out of political technicalities, even though he is losing the popular support. It is the other way round. By ironing out discrpancies in popular vote turnouts, the candidate with most pledged deleagets is winning the popular support, and the one with the popular vote lead is leading only due to political technicalities of the system.

The typical response is that caucuses are not representative of the states true intentions. You may argue that you do not like them as a system. But the weaknesses of caucuses do nothing to stop the illogical nature of using the popular vote as a metric of support.

So lets bury this popular vote argument once and for all, or AT LEAST, aknowledge when you are making it that you are not using it as a logical argument, but as a political technicality to force your candidate on the ticket, even though she lost the popular support of the electoratate. Because there is no logical basis for the argument to stand on.

Now however consider- what does Hillary Clinton imply to me, when she is using the popular vote arguement, saying she has won the democratic support of the party because of it, and saying that 'delegate math is complicated, electoral math is simple, I have more votes'. She is not stupid. She can do math. She knows that the delegates are the only correct measure of support. Is she not trying to confuse voters, and make them overturn the truly democratically more popular candidate, using an argument that mocks democracy? Is she not asking us to overturn the results of a democratic election, by confusing people into thinking they are doing the exact opposite? How is this not electoral fraud, and political maneuvering and strategizing of the worst kind?

It is this argument that has truly made me hate her. For I can understand her thinking she is a better candidate, or her attackign Obama with any sorts of attacks if she truly feels so negatively about him. To twist the very ideals and principles of democracy, how can I excuse that?

[slinkerwink]

1. the popular vote in michigan doesn't count because there were no delegates

allocated based upon the illegal Michigan primary. THe new delegates allocated does not reflect the so-called popular vote count, which is why the Clinton camp is mad.

[housewolf]

6. And their anger is based on their mis-understanding of the basic tenet of primary elections

which is that primaries are about allocating delegates to each viable candidate, not about a popular vote.

What most don't understand is that we are a representational democracy, not a direct democracy. Both the primary elections and the general election are based on the states results, not the over-all result. Each state party has the right and responsibility to decide for themselves how they allocate their delegates. Some state parties have chosen to do that through a primary election. Other states have chosen to do so through a caucus system. States could chose some other method of allocating their delegates.

The MI Dem Party yesterday chose a different method for allocating its delegates. It was within their rights to do so.

The sad thing is that all the talk about "count every vote", while a wonderful and uplifting philosophical political tenet, was turned into a political slogan and used to energize supporters while mis-leading them about the purpose and basis of primary elections.

[dkf]

2. The popular vote is for low information voters who don't know how primaries work.

[jwirr]

3. Unless of course you want to disinfranchise all of us caucus voters.

:sarcasm:

[baldguy]

4. "But Hillary WON the popular vote!"

Forget it. Trying to get Hilbots to acknowledge the facts is like talking to a post.

[Yotun]

5. The answer should be, 'So what if she did?'

[backscatter712]

7. K&R!

Another couple points.

Frequently, state Democratic parties allocate more delegates to areas with lots of Democrats, so you don't even have anything that is comparable to a one-man-one-vote metric, and it's not intended to be comparable.

Also, consider that Hillary's vote counts are inflated thanks to Operation Chaos - that makes her claims of a legitimate popular vote lead even more flimsy.

[MonkeyFunk]

8. It's meaningful

as an argument to the superdelegates. I don't know why you all pretend not to understand that.

[Yotun]

12. Its not meaningful just by saying it is. Explain logically why it is.

And its obviously not meaningful to the superdelegates because its not convincing anybody.

[PretzelWarrior]

16. apparently the superdelegates don't give a flying fuck

about popular vote either. They must understand electoral math a lot better than you Hillbots do.

[Hope And Change]

18. It may be an argument however the race is about delegates...

Transcript: Howard Wolfson on 'FOX News Sunday'

Sunday, May 11, 2008


<snip>

WALLACE: Well, let's talk about that. What is Senator Clinton's view of when this race is over?

WOLFSON: When one candidate gets to 2,209, which is the number of delegates needed with Florida and Michigan. We believe Florida and Michigan ought to be counted. Two and a half million people voted in those states, record turnout.

We want those votes counted in the way that they were cast on primary day.

WALLACE: So if he gets to 2,025, which is the majority excluding Florida and Michigan, she doesn't get out of the race?

WOLFSON: Well, I think Florida and Michigan will have a sense of what the DNC is going to do on May 31st. I certainly don't envision Senator Obama getting to 2,025 before then. And I think after then, we'll be at 2,209.

<snip>


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354987,00.html

[berni_mccoy]

9. Psssst. Hey Clinton Supporters, you don't like this OP? I got some news for you...

The U.S. is not a Democracy! *gasp*
The Democratic Party is not a Democracy! *double gasp*

The Democratic party uses a delegate system to represent the Democratic districts more heavily, which Obama has won the vast majority of, while Clinton played a winner-take-all game, thinking she was running in the GOP primary.

The General Election uses an Electoral College system where it is possible to win *more* Electoral Votes and thus the Presidency. Popular vote won't win there either. *triple gasp*

[Auntie Bush]

11. Oh the arrogance!

Just like Obama. Birds of a feather...............

[JackORoses]

14. whatever, Auntie W

Hillary lost.

Salvage what integrity you have left and support the nominee.

[berni_mccoy]

17. Bwahahahaaha. That's Right Auntie. Get Used To Our Massive Egos for the next 4 years!!1!

:P

[Auntie Bush]

10. Aren't you a little arrogant to assume we /anyone needs a lesson on the meaning of the popular vote?

Because one is happy that Hillary has received more votes than Obama...doesn't mean we don't understand that the one with the most delegates determines the winner?

[Yotun]

13. Because people are acting that if she had won more votes it would mean anything.

Even the way you phrase what you are saying. Why would you be happy with winning something that means nothing... while saying that you understand that the one with the most delegates wins, is almost like saying that the one with the most delegates wins not because it reflects actual support but because its 'the rules' or something similar.

[anigbrowl]

15. Well, I wish you'd explain it to Terry McAuliffe et al then.

You, personally, may get it and celebrate it for what it is (good performance, shows a woman candidate can compete just fine etc.) but some of her campaign chairs are running around as if the popular vote were the holy grail. I was watching McAuliffe earlier saying that polling proves (!) Hillary would win in November and Obama would lose, but then 90 seconds later was complaining about Michigan studying the results of exit polls when considering the uncommitted delegation and saying he'd never heard of polls being used to determine the results of electoral contests.

[Yotun]

19. Apparently your candidate herseld needs a lesson, since she made the same argument AGAIN today...

She is disgusting.

[FlyingSquirrel]

20. Obama will WIN the popular vote and I can prove it.

Incontrovertible proof that Obama wins the Popular Vote

[Yotun]

21. Another thread using the popular vote up in the first page... Learn some arithmetic people!!!

[BzaDem]

22. Bullshit.

Your whole argument is based upon the premise that we should reweight caucuses to compensate for the lower turnout (as pledged delegates do). That is crap. If you don't want to vote, you don't get to count. It really is that simple. You can post 10 pages on how you think the popular vote is meaningless, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful.

[Yotun]

23. You sir- are an idiot. Period.

It is factually impossible for the caucuses to have the same turnout as primaries, even if everybody 'wanted' to vote. Process, time, and space limitations dictate that. Statistics dictate that. You deny reality. IF you are arguing that caucuses should not be reweighted, you are an idiot, and have no problem with disenfranchising half the nation who has caucuses, who pretty much count for nothing if you use the popular vote as a metric for success.

The depths of stupidity and electoral fraud you are willing to go to to support your candidate at any cost is astounding.

[dansolo]

24. The 2000 election only dealt with one state

The popular vote argument is not even valid in the context of the 2000 election. Gore could have been beaten outright in FL and still won the popular vote. The anger about 2000 wasn't because Al Gore had won the popular vote, and bringing it up just demonstrates that these people don't have a clue what the real issue was.

[Yotun]

25. ANYBODY? Clinton supporters? Who will defend the popular vote?