Need some help- question regarding the number of votes (Narrative question)
Okay, I keep reading over and over that Hillary has millions of votes and she has more than Bernie. However, my question is about caucus votes and how these numbers are counted in the overall voter total.
I was a caucus voter in Washington State and in my precinct Bernie received 46 votes to 2 votes for Hillary, but the total that reported was 6 delegates for Bernie and 0 delegates for Hillary. Therefore, when you see the final results for Washington State it was 19,159 votes (delegates) for Bernie and 7,140 votes (delegates) for Hillary. If you use my precinct as a model, you could say each "vote" represents about 7.5 voters (lets say 6 voters just to be conservative). Therefore, the true vote outcome for Washington State would have been Bernie 114,954 to 42,840. Based on this model and conservative estimate Bernie beats Hillary by 72,114 votes.
My question/request to you all: Are these true vote totals ever figured out and incorporated the overall voter totals?
The reason I am asking this question is because if these numbers are truly looked at then I believe Bernie may have equaled or beat Hillary overall voter total.
Thanks for your time and feedback regarding this inquiry.
Comments
there IS NO vote total
because of the different systems the so-called vote total is not a "thing". You can't project caucuses to a larger segment of society.
It is very much like comparing apples to oranges and asking "how many apples is that in total?" The answer is "as many apples as you see and as many oranges as you see."
This is especially irrelevant when the object is something other than votes, in this case delegates.
It is, however, an interesting thought experiment.
On a related note, as we remember, Hillary tried to claim she had more total votes in 2008, by not only combining caucus totals with primary totals but also by adding in non-primaries which the DNC said beforehand DID NOT COUNT!! Not only was the concept screwy in the first place but, we can see, it's open to dishonest manipulation. Funny, that it should have come from the Hillary campaign in '08.
This feedback works- thanks
Got it, thank you for this detailed feedback this helps me. You are right comparing apples to oranges never works.
It isn't a meaningful comparison.
If you're going to start pointing at "total votes", rather than pledge delegates, you are explicitly down-rating the delegates from caucus states.
If you're going to try to apply some sort of "correction factor" to multiply caucus voters ... well ... that's the whole point of allocating delegates to states based on Democratic turnout in previous elections. In other words, the correction has already been done, and is represented by the delegate totals.
Total votes cast is a red herring non-argument thrown up by Hillarists in a disingenuous attempt to devalue Sanders's delegates. Fuck 'em.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I agree- just trying to get
some talking points. I am tired of hearing this narrative and thought it would be nice to provide facts that is why I asked. However, I learned to speak to it and understand the true nature of this false talking point.
In addition to what others have said
Out of curiosity, I ran the vote totals as best I could just after the March 15 contests, to see whether I could confirm my impression that HRC's strength was all in the South. And yes, the numbers were distorted by the existence of caucuses in states that didn't report raw votes; but nevertheless, the results were very striking. At the time, all of that 2.5 million-ish extra votes for Clinton came from the old Confederacy; that is, if you split the country into two regions, one consisting of ex-CFA states -- call it Region 1 -- and one consisting of everywhere else, and ran the vote totals for each region individually, you found that Clinton had about 2.5 million votes more than Sanders in Region 1.
In Region 2, though, Sanders had about 75,000 more votes than Clinton. Not a huge margin, obviously, but nevertheless the numbers fail to show Clinton as having any overall advantage in popularity or ability to attract votes outside the old South (and outside predominantly red states). She did have victories in Region 2, but they were close, non-blowout wins, not showing any decisive pattern of strength.
So I tend to disregard the 'she has 2.5 million more votes than he does, she's so popular!' talking point. On the one hand, it's true, and those voters do count. But on the other, it's not evidence of broad electoral strength nationwide, let alone in the states that will matter come November; and citing it as if it were is misleading in the extreme.