[RP TownTalk] What a weird primary system this is!

[Dwight Holmes]

Re the point I raised last week about the Maryland system of having us
vote for our presidential choice and the delegates who will actually
select the party nominee in a totally separate vote... I just grabbed
the Riverdale Elementary School precinct and they, I believe, support
my contention that this is a system which predictably doesn't work.
Basically the number of voters selecting delegates on the bottom of
the ballot runs between 62% (McCain) and 86% (Obama) of the number who
selected the candidate at the top of the ballot. In a really tight
election (which we didn't have of course) that could make a
difference. More importantly, it's just silly to do it this way to
begin with.

The election results show that 603 people voted at Riverdale
Elementary -- 522 in the Dem primary and 79 in the Rep primary (I take
it 2 noble citizens voted independent, for judges??)

Let's look at the Dems first:

Of the 522 Dems who voted 100% voted for a presidential candidate (62%
for Obama, 35% for Clinton, 3% for the rest).

Among the 522 Dems, 85% voted in the Congressional race (Hoyer vs
not-a-chance) and a noble 50% voted in the judges contest (I made the
assumption that everyone who voted for (or against) at least one judge
voted for all 5 of them -- it's only an assumption of course).

Now let's look at the relevant question -- how many of the 522 voted
for the delegates who are to vote for their choice of presidential
candidate?

Obama the candidate got 325 votes; it looks like of those 325 only 86%
voted for the female Obama candidates and 82% voted for the Obama male
candidates.

Clinton the candidate got 184 votes; of those 184, 83% apparently
voted for her female delegates and 79% apparently voted for her male
delegates.

It's the same on the Republican side, where apparently 83% of those
who voted for their choice of presidential candidate took the trouble
to vote for the delegates.  Interestingly this number varied
considerably by candidate: McCain delegates were selected by only 62%
of those who voted for the candidate! 85% of Huckabee voters voted for
his delegates and ***133%*** of Paul supporters voted for his
delegates.  (Watch out for a huge Paul surprise at the convention in
September! ;-)  (BTW, 5% of the Rep. votes for delegates went to
uncommitted delegates and 13% went to Giuliani, Romney and Thompson
delegates.)

I think this stinks. Again we're asked to vote for something about
which we're entirely ignorant.  Let our vote for the candidate be
decisive in selecting her or his delegates to go to the convention. It
really shouldn't be complicated.

If anyone here is tied in with the State Dem. Party pls let me know --
I'd love to start now getting this changed before 2012 (the campaign
for which should be starting any day now).

If anyone wants me spreadsheet let me know.

> > > Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:32:13 -0500
> > > From: dwightrholmes at gmail.com
> > > To: towntalk at riverdale-park.org; HOPE_in_Hyattsville at yahoogroups.com
> > > Subject: [RP TownTalk] What a weird primary system this is!
> >
> > > Looking at my sample Democratic Party ballot for tomorrow for the
> > > Maryland primary, this is a very strange primary system we have
> > > indeed. It's not like this everywhere, of that I'm sure. (I have no
> > > idea if any of this applies to the Republican balloting or not).
> > >
> > > If you're registered as a Democrat and in Congressional District 5
> > > (Hoyer's district) your ballot looks like this:
> > >
> > http://mdelections.umbc.edu/voter_registration/v2/primary_2008/Prince%20Georges/BS1.pdf
> > >
> > > If not, you can find your ballot here:
> > > http://mdelections.umbc.edu/voter_registration/v2/vote_prod.php
> > >
> > > Tomorrow I will vote quite separately for my presidential candidate of
> > > choice and the delegates. So will every other registered Democrat in
> > > Maryland. If I were *really* unable to decide between Clinton and
> > > Obama, then I could (for example) vote for Clinton on the top of the
> > > ballot, but then vote for Obama delegates at the bottom! But of
> > > course the Clinton vote is cosmetic, and only my votes for Obama
> > > delegates really means anything! The only thing that's important about
> > > your vote for the candidate is that they each must get 15% of the vote
> > > total, or they won't earn any delegates whatsoever.
> > >
> > > Of course, my fear is that some (however many it is, it's too many)
> > > voters will go in not having studied the sample ballot, see the list
> > > of candidates at the top, make their choice (Clinton, Obama, Edwards,
> > > Biden, Dodd, Uncommitted, and more – they're all on there), then see
> > > that the next section has to do with judges (why we vote for judges,
> > > about whom fewer than 1/10 of 1% of us know anything at all, is beyond
> > > me), stop reading and say "I'm done." Then they'll finish their vote
> > > and leave, without having made the choice that counts: Delegates.
> > > Let's hope not, but isn't this a legitimate concern?
> > >
> > > (By the way, it's not like this in every state. For certain I know
> > > that in California, the ballot choice only involves the candidates
> > > themselves; selection of delegates is made in local caucuses of some
> > > kind).
> > >
> > > So, in sum -- Vote early, vote often, and be sure to vote for your the
> > > delegates who are committed to your candidate!! :-)