Guess what? Washington State had a primary yesterday and HRC beat Bernie

[book_worm]

On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. She had nearly 54 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s returns in a major reversal — though purely symbolic — from March caucuses, in which Sanders dominated.

As of Tuesday, more than 660,000 Democratic votes had been counted in the primary.


The Associated Press called both races shortly after 8 p.m.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wash-primary1/

Many more people voted in the primary than in the caucuses which is common. The caucus result, however, is what counts regarding delegates. But it's interesting to see that when more people vote it is HRC who often is the victor--as she has won most of the primaries while Bernie does best in caucuses. The same thing happened recently in Nebraska. Bernie won the caucus and then a primary was held where more people vote and Hillary won that.

[LexVegas]

1. Bernie's done either way. Has been since March. nt

[Baobab]

19. Another one?

??

[DrDan]

2. but these are real votes - and for Hillary - so they don't count

[Matt_in_STL]

3. If only they had shown up when it mattered, rather than for a beauty contest.

[book_worm]

5. Yes, but what does that matter?

HRC has the nomination. And maybe when this caucus was held many were working--you do know that caucuses are much more undemocratic than primaries. I remember Bernie supporters saying that when HRC won Iowa and Nevada--so it must be true.

[Matt_in_STL]

6. If you don't like the process, change it.

Pretty sure I have heard that around here somewhere.

[cemaphonic]

24. This is a bit of a sore spot in WA politics however.

The public voted some time ago to switch from a caucus to a primary. The state Democratic Party for its own reasons has fought tooth and nail through the courts to subvert this and make the primary non-binding. So work is being done to change it, and hopefully the wide discrepancy between the primary and caucus will provide ammunition. But it's very much a case of the elite getting to run things their way no matter what the public thinks, which as you may have noticed, is not an easy thing to change in American politics.

[Matt_in_STL]

25. And that is a party decision. As Hillary supporters have said for months...

This is the process. If they didn't like it, the time to change it was before the primaries. If the party heads are working against the people in the state, then the people need to elect those who will oust those party heads.

[Agschmid]

12. It wasn't a beauty contest... this is when many of the downticket primary races were decided.

Sure it might mean nothing in the actually democratic presidential primary, but it certainly wasn't a "beauty contest".

[suffragette]

22. Not true. Ballot is for presidential primary only and Democratic primary votes don't count.

Please don't spread incorrect information.

The ballot ONLY has the option to vote for a Democratic or Republican candidate for President. That's it. NO other primary races, initiatives or anything.

The Democratic Party here has chosen to ONLY count the caucus and not the primary. Informed voters here know that and many opt not to waste a stamp on what the party has made a meaningless process.

Interestingly, nothing in the materials enclosed with the ballot informs voters that the Democratic
Party here does not count these votes toward selecting a candidate while the Republicans do. That info is available elsewhere, but not in the enclosed materials.

[mcar]

4. An odd system

The caucus, which gets lower participation, counts but the primary doesn't?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. And even in a system rigged against her she will win by nearly 400 pledged delegates and 6,000,000

And even in a system rigged against her she will win by nearly 400 pledged delegates and 6,000,000 votes.

[mcar]

8. But only some of those votes count

according to what I've read on this board.

[morningfog]

21. Where'd you find that crystal ball?

You expect Hillary to net 120 PDs between now and June 14?

And you expect her to net 3 million more votes?

[Cobalt Violet]

9. the people voted to scrap the caucus and just have a primary. The establishment said no.

She won't get any delegates from the primary. Oh the irony! If only the establishment listened to the will of the people.

[mcar]

10. They should have listened

The caucus system is not an effective way to choose a party's nominee.

[Agschmid]

13. The state actually voted to switch to a primary but... it didn't happen.

[randome]

11. Then there must be a corporate conspiracy to keep this information out of the news!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[J_J_]

14. Guess what- Washington has easily manipulated voting machines

This report summarizes the results of our review of the GEMS election management system, which counts approximately 25 percent of all votes in the United States. The results of this study demonstrate that a fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes. This tampering is not visible to election observers, even if they are standing in the room and watching the computer. Use of the decimalized vote feature is unlikely to be detected by auditing or canvass procedures, and can be applied across large jurisdictions in less than 60 seconds.

GEMS vote-counting systems are and have been operated under five trade names: Global Election Systems, Diebold Election Systems, Premier Election Systems, Dominion Voting Systems, and Election Systems & Software, in addition to a number of private regional subcontractors. At the time of this writing, this system is used statewide in Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah and Vermont, and for counties in Arizona, (upcoming) California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. It is also used in Canada.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512017617

[LAS14]

17. k & r

[Skwmom]

18. Guess what? Clinton and her party machine were the only players on the field.

Bernie is focusing on states that have yet to vote.

[onenote]

23. so Bernie's supporters in Washington suffer from an enthusiasm gap?

Let's be honest. If the vote in Washington state was flipped around, no Sanders supporter would be arguing that it was a meaningless vote. And the vote does mean something despite the fact it wouldn't alter the delegate totals. It means that the Sanders folks, knowing that Clinton had the incentive to make a good showing in Washington state, either didn't care enough to get out the vote or weren't able to.

[Trenzalore]

20. If Bernie cared about democracy

He would demand the primary results seat delegates since more people participated