Hopefully Helpful Suggestion for Iowa:

[snot]

In case of a tie within a precinct, instead of doing a coin toss, the precinct would report the delegate that could not be assigned based on votes alone as "evenly divided" (and which candidates they were divided between, i.e., which candidates might otherwise have won or lost a coin toss).

Once all the precincts have, the "evenly divided" delegates from all precincts producing them would be counted up. If the "evenly divided" could be divided evenly between the candidates they were divided between, that's how the evenly divided candidates should be allocated.

So, e.g., in this case there were 6 coin tosses, and Hillary happened to win them all. That doesn't really reflect the will of those who caucused; a more accurate reflection would be for the state, at the end of the reporting, to allocate 3 each to Hillary and Bernie.

In the event that the "evenly divided" delegates add up to an odd number and can't themselves be evenly split between the relevant candidates, then the state could do a coin toss as to the one, odd delegate.

UPDATE: Ok, just saw this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511123143 . Assuming it's correct, it makes clear that the coin tosses only determine, in essence, a delegate who would get to vote for a lesser number of delegates, who would in turn get to vote for a lesser number of pledged delegates, etc.

Still, I hope there's not a lot of coin-tossing needed at the subsequent levels, and I don't see the need for so much coin-tossing in general.

[immoderate]

1. Better yet, have them explain and justify their whole system, which is undemocratic.

--imm