The System Isn’t ‘Rigged’ Against Sanders

[Iamaartist]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/05/27/1531482/-The-System-Isn-t-Rigged-Against-Sanders


This information is taken from an article that is published by FiveThirtyEight. I will only include the summary information. If you want the state-by-state breakdowns of the totals, then please refer to the article that I mentioned.

The article starts with a comparison of the voting system between a caucus and a primary. The original assumption is that Sanders is underreported and should have done better if the states were by caucus. It goes on to state:

Caucuses which often require hours of participation and mean lower turnout — are representative of what would happen if a larger electorate had its say. Well, a funny thing happened in Washington on Tuesday: The state held a mail-in, beauty-contest primary — so voting was easy, but no delegates were at stake. (The Associated Press has declared Hillary Clinton the winner.) The results are still being finalized, but Clinton leads by about 6 percentage points with more than 700,000 votes counted. Sanders won the Washington caucuses, which had 230,000 participants, by 46 percentage points.


The Washington and Nebraska caucus and primaries can give us an insight into the two systems. Bernie Sanders won both caucuses and received the delegates from the win. After the caucus, a non-delegate primary was held for general election results. But, part of the ballot was the presidential race. It seems that Clinton won the primary votes by a landslide margin. She would have won both states if they held a primary rather than a caucus.

The following information is the current breakdown as it exists today. This data is a mix of both caucus and primary results:

The Washington and Nebraska caucus and primaries can give us an insight into the two systems. Bernie Sanders won both caucuses and received the delegates from the win. After the caucus, a non-delegate primary was held for general election results. But, part of the ballot was the presidential race. It seems that Clinton won the primary votes by a landslide margin. She would have won both states if they held a primary rather than a caucus.

If we count only caucus states, then Sanders won 63 percent of the vote and 64 percent of the delegates. (The numbers are close, but slightly inflated in favor of Sanders.) He won 11 of the 16 contests and earned 341 of the bound delegates, irrespective of Nevada. The data compares to Clinton's share of 195 delegates, giving him the advantage of about 146 delegates using today's numbers with just the caucus states that currently exist.

Sanders did far worse in the states that held primaries, including the recent ones in Washington and Nebraska. Here, Sanders won only 43% of the vote, 43% of the delegate count and 10 of the 34 states. Clinton won 57% of the vote, 57% of the delegate count and 24 of the states. The turnout in the primaries was far higher than the caucus by over 34 million votes cast. For these contests, Clinton won 1,676 delegates to Sanders count of only 1,158.

It is fair to say that the demographics are different between the caucus state and the primaries. These caucus states are usually rural which have a higher percentage of Sanders leading demographic, white males; while primaries are typically more general of the national population. If you look at the events held in Washington and Nebraska, they have the same demographics. They have the same population. More votes were cast in the primary than attended the caucus; by a significant amount


Clinton's popular vote and delegate count would have increased by an additional 1.75 million votes and 76 delegates while Sanders counts would have dropped by 76 delegates. He would have gained about 1.3 million additional popular votes at the same time.


The results for Clinton is slightly worse than a closed primary system while they are slightly better for Sanders. But here is the clincher. If you compare the numbers for an open primary to the current numbers that have both primaries and caucus events, the results show a different picture.

Clinton's margin in the national popular vote shrinks to from 12 to 8 percent. This is because the open primary would allow more independent voters into the mix. Also, she would have lost Kentucky and Connecticut that she won because the states were a closed primary.

But, here is the real difference. Her delegate count would have increased from 1,771 to 1,782 because she would have picked up the additional votes that she lost due to the caucus states.

Clinton would still be winning, no matter how the primaries and caucus events turned out.


Sanders is not losing because the game is rigged. Sanders is losing because the voters just don't vote for him.

And some just don't understand that....

[Thinkingabout]

1. It was never rigged against Sanders. They complainted when the DNC did not

Obtain the signatures to get him on the ballots in every location.

[Iamaartist]

2. Very well said... the media doesnt help either...most all articles are turned around against her....

[texstad79]

3. With all the caucus states, it actually favors him n/t

[procon]

4. The great thing about the Sanders conspiracy narrative that he's losing

because everything is rigged against him, is that it self-perpetuating. Those who want the fiction to be true are busily sussing out evidence and collecting cherry picked pieces of confirmation stories to keep the falsehood alive in their heart of hearts. This conspiracy theory continues to grow with each defeat, and now Sanders followers are reduced to coughing up that same platitude that everyone is in on it.