I don't get it. I take it for granted that we see the electoral college as evil

[question everything]

Yet, the way I understand it, this is how Iowa counts the caucus votes.

Don’t get me wrong: I will take Buttigieg over Sanders any time. But seems that while Sanders got more votes, Buttigieg got more delegates - as of now - because, well just as Hillary got more votes but Trump got the electoral votes. At least this is the way I understand it.

Is this unique to Iowa?

I kinda remember Al Sharpton Presidential campaign in 2004. It was in PA, I think, that I asked about how votes were allocated to Sharpton and got my head bit here.

[FoxNewsSucks]

1. That seems to be how primaries work.

The delegates awarded are only loosely related to vote results.

I've come to actually like the idea of caucuses, if it were a mandatory no-work holiday so that everyone who wanted to participate could.

Definitely better than hackable unsecure voting machines. I thought Mayor Pete explained his confidence in the Iowa results perfectly on TV the next morning.

[pnwmom]

5. Caucuses are worse than primaries in this respect. When people vote in a primary,

they don't switch teams and get recounted. There aren't volunteers literally counting heads as people move around the room and even in and out the door.

[FoxNewsSucks]

6. True, but that is what some people want

with instant-runoff, or "2nd choice" voting. If your first choice doesn't win, then your vote goes to your second choice.

I like the fact that everything in a caucus is out in the open. That's pretty much what changed my mind about a caucus vs a primary. But as I said, it needs to be made so that everyone can participate. Other than a mandatory holiday, I don't know how to accomplish that. I'd also like for every election to be on verifiable paper ballots that are kept, and legally allowed to be recounted.

[pnwmom]

7. It's bad for anyone who wants to cast their vote in PRIVACY, and not be bullied or "persuaded"

to switch to another candidate. What happens to someone who's in a small town and goes to the same caucus as his boss?

And since these events take several hours (just at the first level) that automatically reduces voter participation, even if people had the day off. Most people don't want to spend hours caucusing with their neighbors. That's why attendance rates are a fraction of voting in primaries.

And when we had caucuses, there were volunteers literally counting heads (of hundreds of moving people), and writing numbers on a clipboard. If everything was done on private ballots, then it wouldn't be a caucus -- it'd be a primary.

[treestar]

10. maybe use the internet

allowing people who can't travel to appear on a TV to participate. There are remote parts of Australia where they do medical consultations over skype.

[unitedwethrive]

11. Out in the open it's not necessarily a good thing.

Two of my nephews, in different colleges in Texas, say that they have seen and heard many instances of mild bullying. Though not overt homophobia, there is the suggestion that “of course so and so would vote for Buttigieg”.

While Texas does not have caucuses, it is easy to see that such pressure in a caucus state might make students either not show up to caucus or to go along with the majority.

[Retrograde]

14. "A mandatory no-work holiday"

How exactly do you propose we run all these caucuses? We live in a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week world: here in the densely populated Bay Area - and in other metropolitan areas - there is no time when everyone who would be eligible to participate in a caucus would be available. There's a reason polls are open for more than 12 hours on election days, and why more people are voting early.

I would like to see us move to ranked choice voting for primary elections. And yes, ranked choice eletions can leave a paper trail as well as any other election.

[brooklynite]

2. Here's the structure...

...Each precinct/district elects delegates to a County Caucus. Those Caucuses appoint delegates to a Congressional District Caucus who elect a subset of Convention Delegates. They also appoint delegates to a statewide Caucus which appoints delegates to the Convention.

[dawg day]

3. I'd be happy to get rid of caucuses as well as the EC.

Caucuses are fun for the press, fun for dedicated party members, but "one-person/one-vote" is more important.

[msongs]

4. this is not the only vote, there are dozens more votes coming mostly all more important nt

[thesquanderer]

8. As an aside, I wouldn't take for granted that we all see EC as evil. It's complicated. (n/t)

[Shrek]

9. +1

Agreed. If Ohio had gone a bit differently in 2004 the EC would have given us a Kerry presidency.

[LongtimeAZDem]

12. Agreed; it's a system, that's all. It's also the only constitutional check on a tainted election.

[denem]

13. The EC results in 2000 & 2016 were absolute disasters for the union.

That's evil enough for me.

[Tom Rinaldo]

15. Maybe there are potentially defensible reasons why delegates don't track relative vote totals

Don't ask me to come up with one, but they may exist. This controversy is a subset of the bigger controversy about caucuses, but for now some states still use caucuses and that is that. Leaving that big picture aside for a second, and without claiming that there are any malicious forces at work in Iowa, at some point common sense has to enter into the equation. If Sanders clearly won the raw vote, and then followed up and won the redistributed vote, but still lost the delegate equivalency count by a tiny fraction of a percent due to some formula that gets triggered, he has every right to claim that he won the vote of Iowa caucus goers and, except for a technicality, he won the caucus in a competitive sense. When all is said and done Bernie and Pete will probably get the same number of national delegates out of Iowa, or at most be separated by one delegate only.

Iowa should be called essentially a tie, because that is what it is. Pete can call himself a winner if he comes out marginally ahead in the delegate equivalency figures, Bernie can call himself a winner for winning "the popular vote".