US Election Thread - Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Mormont,

The unwillingness of the Democratic party to release information that may undermine the Clinton campaign's claim of victory in Iowa suggests a bias on behalf of the party for the Clinton campaign, in my opinion.

[Weeping Sore]

It would certainly be more important in a winner-take-all contest. I actually don't doubt that Clinton won more "state-delegate-equivalents" by the not-entirely-democratic rules of the Democratic caucus. The raw vote tally would probably favor Sanders, as in rural areas there are more SDEs per caucuser, and urban areas had greater turn-out for Sanders. So because more urban caucusers were required to equal an SDE, the fact that Sanders nearly tied Clinton in SDE probably indicates more people actually caucused for him.

Apart from the change in narrative if the race were to begin with two Sanders victories instead, the delegate difference (Clinton 22 Sanders 21) is insignificant. More egregiously anti-democratic to my mind is the continued existence of "super-delegates" who can vote at the convention for whomever they want, regardless of the results of primaries and caucuses. 359 have committed to Clinton already, while only 8 have committed to Sanders.  So Clinton's lead at this point is actually 381 to 29. Of course, even the "committed" super-delegates can change their mind before the convention...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 hours ago, Mudguard said:

If that's what the data actually shows, that's fine.  Clinton still won the state.  I don't think keeping that type of data hidden is worth the cost of undermining the legitimacy of the results.

I agree. I was just speculating why they won't release the data.

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Mormont,

The unwillingness of the Democratic party to release information that may undermine the Clinton campaign's claim of victory in Iowa suggests a bias on behalf of the party for the Clinton campaign, in my opinion.

I agree. Sanders himself said last night it doesn't matter who won because it was a virtual tie. But what does matter is that it gives the impression that the party is actively trying to help Clinton win. And if what Mudguard said about the Iowa Chariwoman is true, then it makes that impression worse.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

It also matters that whatever issues there may have been this time be brought to light and fixed in future contests- Iowa is going to be using the caucus system for years to come.

[Fez]

5 minutes ago, Weeping Sore said:

It would certainly be more important in a winner-take-all contest. I actually don't doubt that Clinton won more "state-delegate-equivalents" by the not-entirely-democratic rules of the Democratic caucus. The raw vote tally would probably favor Sanders, as in rural areas there are more SDEs per caucuser, and urban areas had greater turn-out for Sanders. So because more urban caucusers were required to equal an SDE, the fact that Sanders nearly tied Clinton in SDE probably indicates more people actually caucused for him.

Apart from the change in narrative if the race were to begin with two Sanders victories instead, the delegate difference (Clinton 22 Sanders 21) is insignificant. More egregiously anti-democratic to my mind is the continued existence of "super-delegates" who can vote at the convention for whomever they want, regardless of the results of primaries and caucuses. 359 have committed to Clinton already, while only 8 have committed to Sanders.  So Clinton's lead at this point is actually 381 to 29. Of course, even the "committed" super-delegates can change their mind before the convention...

Here's the thing though, the super-delegates will never ever throw the nomination to a candidate that didn't have the most committed delegates already*. I think Clinton is going to have a majority of delegates outright well before the convention, so it won't matter. But, as was the case with Obama in '08, if Sanders has the most delegates, the super-delegates will vote for him in the end. The entire super-delegate system is just a patronage system to reward various local party activists and make sure Democratic elected officials feel connected to the party. Its not about overturning election results and truly destroying party unity.

That gaudy lead is entirely illusional, really she has a 23-21 lead (probably, Iowa has I think two rounds of state delegate voting before things are finalized).

*Maybe in a hypothetical 3-person (or more) race where all 3 candidates had close to the same number of delegates and the one with the most was way out of step with the other two, the super-delegates would throw their support to one of the others. But that'd be a brokered convention anyway, which is a very different matter.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

As has already been said: what meaningful data is there that can be accessed about an in-person caucus? As I understand it, there are only various tallies that could be right or could be wrong, but there's no way of knowing for sure. You can't go back and check. Accessing that data doesn't clear anything up.

And, to echo the point made by Anti-Targ; what's the issue anyway? There's no suggestion that Sanders actually won by a clear and significant margin. It's just a question of whether a race that was effectively a tie was technically a Clinton victory by a wafer-thin, insignificant amount or a Sanders win by a wafer-thin, insignificant amount. That doesn't alter the basic narrative of the result - that there was little or nothing to pick between the candidates.

This is a completely absurd argument. What we're talking about is the integrity of a system for apportioning delegates. The interest in releasing the data is to ensure that the system itself is functioning properly according to its own rules. This is a matter of institutional integrity. The idea that it doesn't matter because there's some ridiculous media narrative that exists and the media narrative probably won't be impacted by whether or not the system is functioning properly is a complete non sequitur. The purpose of auditing a system for institutional integrity has nothing at all to do with picking apart some after-the-fact media narrative created by the national press.  

[mormont]

45 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Mormont,

The unwillingness of the Democratic party to release information that may undermine the Clinton campaign's claim of victory in Iowa suggests a bias on behalf of the party for the Clinton campaign, in my opinion.

Scot, you're simply begging the question here. This assumes that the information a, is reliable and checkable - otherwise it's meaningless one way or the other; b, would in fact be damaging to Clinton; and c, that it matters - that is, that an extremely narrow victory (in effect a tie) for Clinton is somehow less damaging than a revision of that result to an actual tie or a victory for Sanders so narrow that it is in effect a tie.

Again - no matter whether this info is released or not, no-one (including the Clinton campaign) is denying that in effect the contest was a tie. That was the story on the night, it's the story now. Wallowing in the minutiae of whether that tie was 0.05% this way or 0.03% that way is not an important issue, any way you slice it.

ETA - Nestor, your entire post is pointless. I've already pointed out that as far as I understand things, it's effectively impossible to audit the integrity of this system in any meaningful way. That ship has sailed.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

9 hours ago, Triskan said:

What's a PUMA?

PUMA = Party Unity My Ass

It comes from 2008, when some Clinton supporters were saying they would not support Obama for the sake of party unity. Didn't have much of an electoral impact, clearly.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Mormont,

Perception is important in politics.  It is the perception of the Democratic party's actions that are problematic.  The reality might be but the perception is the real kicker here.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

24 minutes ago, mormont said:

ETA - Nestor, your entire post is pointless. I've already pointed out that as far as I understand things, it's effectively impossible to audit the integrity of this system in any meaningful way. That ship has sailed.

The issue is with your understanding of things, which is just straight up incorrect. The Iowa Caucas has rules - many of them, in fact. While it may be impossible to to audit EVERY possible factual input (which is usually the case), it is NOT impossible to audit the system to make sure that the rules were followed based upon the information that we have and/or can verify.

As just one, incredibly obvious, example: You may be right that raw vote totals are impossible to independently verify. I'm not actually convinced this is a real issue, although you obviously seem to think that it is. But regardless, we can use the raw vote totals that we actually have and which already exist, to make sure that each precinct properly apportioned their delegates based upon the formula they are supposed to use. The initial set of "coinflip" stories that came out of the caucuses were based, in part, of stories of the local Sanders precinct leaders challenging the delegate apportionments that were being decided at these local caucus spots. The formula for how to apportion these delegates at the local caucus centers is readily available online. By releasing the raw vote totals, ANYONE sufficiently committed would be able to do the math to figure out if all of the delegates were properly apportioned. 

In addition, as was pointed out by Snopes, we actually DO NOT EVEN KNOW how many precincts were decided by coin flips, as various authorities have given a number of different answers. One of the things the Des Moines Register is asking for, as part of the audit, is a complete list of precincts in which "extra" delegates were assigned by coin toss. The use of chance to select a delegate is supposed to be a rare occurrence. It might possibly be the case that coin flips were NOT warranted in all of these precincts. The only way to know is for an audit to be completed, so that we can use the raw count data that we have to make sure that the apportionments were done correctly. 

 

 

[Mudguard]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

As has already been said: what meaningful data is there that can be accessed about an in-person caucus? As I understand it, there are only various tallies that could be right or could be wrong, but there's no way of knowing for sure. You can't go back and check. Accessing that data doesn't clear anything up.

And, to echo the point made by Anti-Targ; what's the issue anyway? There's no suggestion that Sanders actually won by a clear and significant margin. It's just a question of whether a race that was effectively a tie was technically a Clinton victory by a wafer-thin, insignificant amount or a Sanders win by a wafer-thin, insignificant amount. That doesn't alter the basic narrative of the result - that there was little or nothing to pick between the candidates.

There's a written record of the vote totals for each precint that was submitted by the precint captain.  There's also vote totals submitted by a Microsoft app and via phone which should have been transcribed.  Based on this data, you can check whether the Democratic party correctly apportioned the delegates.  That's all that's being asked for, yet the Democratic party of Iowa refuses to provide access to the data.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Mormont,

Perception is important in politics.  It is the perception of the Democratic parties actions that are problematic.  The reality might be but the perception is the real kicker here.

This is a completely unnecessary concession. This is not, or should not be about, "perception." This is about determining whether the Iowa Caucus system was run with sufficient institutional integrity given the closeness of the precinct results. This is an absolutely legitimate concern that certainly has implications for "perception" - but "perception" is not, and should not be concede to be, the real concern here. The real concern is the institutional integrity of the system. Even if the system is wonky or unusual, it should be run properly, according to its stated rules. And figuring out whether or not it is is an obviously worthwhile endeavor. 

[Weeping Sore]

47 minutes ago, Fez said:

Here's the thing though, the super-delegates will never ever throw the nomination to a candidate that didn't have the most committed delegates already*. I think Clinton is going to have a majority of delegates outright well before the convention, so it won't matter. But, as was the case with Obama in '08, if Sanders has the most delegates, the super-delegates will vote for him in the end. The entire super-delegate system is just a patronage system to reward various local party activists and make sure Democratic elected officials feel connected to the party. Its not about overturning election results and truly destroying party unity.

That gaudy lead is entirely illusional, really she has a 23-21 lead (probably, Iowa has I think two rounds of state delegate voting before things are finalized).

*Maybe in a hypothetical 3-person (or more) race where all 3 candidates had close to the same number of delegates and the one with the most was way out of step with the other two, the super-delegates would throw their support to one of the others. But that'd be a brokered convention anyway, which is a very different matter.

Yeah, like I said they can change their minds. They don't have to, but most likely they would.

The difference in SDEs should really equate to an even split of 22 and 22 delegates, though. 23 to 21 is a 4.6% difference, and the "actual" difference of 0.3% is obviously much closer to zero.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Nestor,

Look at my post again.  I say "there may be a real problem here" my point is that, right now, the problem is the perception that something is being covered up.

[mormont]

20 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

The issue is with your understanding of things, which is just straight up incorrect.

It might well be. I'm no expert. I'm not sure how my understanding is deficient from your post, though, because nothing in there is anything that I did not already know or suspect to be true.

20 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

The Iowa Caucas has rules - many of them, in fact. While it may be impossible to to audit EVERY possible factual input (which is usually the case), it is NOT impossible to audit the system to make sure that the rules were followed based upon the information that we have and/or can verify.

That's not what I said, though: what it is, is a difference of opinion about what 'in any meaningful way' means.

For me, the issue is that as I understand it, the thing being asked for, the thing that is under discussion - vote totals - is not possible to verify. It's possible that there was some error in allocating the delegates correctly, of course, but I've not actually heard anyone really suggesting that this is the case*. If you believe it was, that's fine, but it's not what we were actually talking about a page or so ago, and it's not the major concern being raised by Sanders supporters. That concern is very much about perception, it seems to me. If you have another set of concerns, that's fine, but it seems to me you're raising them in opposition to people who're not actually opposing them.

*full disclosure, though, I haven't read the Des Moines Register story you're referring to.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Here is the Des Moines Register editorial in question.

Here's what, specifically, they're calling for:

The Sanders campaign is rechecking results on its own, going precinct by precinct, and is already finding inconsistencies, said Rania Batrice, a Sanders spokeswoman. The campaign seeks the math sheets or other paperwork that precinct chairs filled out and were supposed to return to the state party. They want to compare those documents to the results entered into a Microsoft app and sent to the party.

“Let’s compare notes. Let’s see if they match,” Batrice said Wednesday.

Dr. Andy McGuire, chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, dug in her heels and said no. She said the three campaigns had representatives in a room in the hours after the caucuses and went over the discrepancies.

McGuire knows what’s at stake. Her actions only confirm the suspicions, wild as they might be, of Sanders supporters. Their candidate, after all, is opposed by the party establishment — and wasn’t even a Democrat a few months ago.

So her path forward is clear: Work with all the campaigns to audit results. Break silly party tradition and release the raw vote totals. Provide a list of each precinct coin flip and its outcome, as well as other information sought by the Register. Be transparent.

And then call for a blue ribbon commission to study how to improve the caucuses, as the Republican Party of Iowa did after its own fiasco in 2012. Monday’s mess showed that it’s time for the Democrats to change, too.

[Mudguard]

29 minutes ago, mormont said:

It might well be. I'm no expert. I'm not sure how my understanding is deficient from your post, though, because nothing in there is anything that I did not already know or suspect to be true.

That's not what I said, though: what it is, is a difference of opinion about what 'in any meaningful way' means.

For me, the issue is that as I understand it, the thing being asked for, the thing that is under discussion - vote totals - is not possible to verify. It's possible that there was some error in allocating the delegates correctly, of course, but I've not actually heard anyone really suggesting that this is the case*. If you believe it was, that's fine, but it's not what we were actually talking about a page or so ago, and it's not the major concern being raised by Sanders supporters. That concern is very much about perception, it seems to me. If you have another set of concerns, that's fine, but it seems to me you're raising them in opposition to people who're not actually opposing them.

*full disclosure, though, I haven't read the Des Moines Register story you're referring to.

That's exactly what we've been talking about the last page or so.  We can verify the vote totals submitted by each precinct and determine whether the delegates have been apportioned correctly.  No one is trying to do anything "impossible."  That's just a stupid strawman argument that was, not surprisingly, also advanced by the Iowa democratic party.

[TrackerNeil]

Interesting read from Krugman, and one with which I mostly agree:

Quote

Yes, Obamacare did preserve private insurance — mainly to avoid big, politically risky changes for Americans who already had good insurance, but also to buy support or at least quiescence from the insurance industry. But the fact that some insurers are making money from reform (and their profits are not, by the way, all that large) isn’t a reason to oppose that reform. The point is to help the uninsured, not to punish or demonize insurance companies.

The part I agree with less is that trash-talking on the part of Sanders or his supporters is going to endanger the ACA. If Sanders becomes president, he'll protect that program as loyally as Clinton would, particularly after he tries and fails to get single-payer through Congress.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

That's exactly what we've been talking about the last page or so.

Nope. The conversation starts on p17 talking about raw vote totals being released (post from Altherion). The DMR editorial is introduced on p18. (Now having read it, I don't think much of it, frankly.) The conversation immediately returns to discussion of the raw vote totals, with asides about whether the Iowa co-chairwoman is in the tank for Hilary and whether caucuses in general are a bad idea. Nobody raises a specific concern about the accuracy of delegate allocation until Nestor does so in the post I'm responding to above.

That all being said, if the campaigns had observers on the night and the right to challenge, yeah, it seems to me all of this is water under the bridge. If you want to say how flawed the Iowa Democrat caucus is as a process, I'm right with you. If you want to talk about how it can be improved or replaced, I'm with you on that too. If you want to say this is somehow key to whether Sanders or Clinton should be the Democratic candidate in this election, I'm leaving you to fight that one alone, I'm afraid.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Nope. The conversation starts on p17 talking about raw vote totals being released (post from Altherion). The DMR editorial is introduced on p18. (Now having read it, I don't think much of it, frankly.) The conversation immediately returns to discussion of the raw vote totals, with asides about whether the Iowa co-chairwoman is in the tank for Hilary and whether caucuses in general are a bad idea. Nobody raises a specific concern about the accuracy of delegate allocation until Nestor does so in the post I'm responding to above.

That all being said, if the campaigns had observers on the night and the right to challenge, yeah, it seems to me all of this is water under the bridge. If you want to say how flawed the Iowa Democrat caucus is as a process, I'm right with you. If you want to talk about how it can be improved or replaced, I'm with you on that too. If you want to say this is somehow key to whether Sanders or Clinton should be the Democratic candidate in this election, I'm leaving you to fight that one alone, I'm afraid.

Not to belabor a painfully obvious point but... yeah, no shit people are talking about the raw vote totals. That's because it is impossible to audit the system to confirm that the Hillary actually won the caucus (ie: that the delegates were appropriately apportioned to her) WITHOUT the raw vote totals, because the raw votes are the raw data that is absolutely necessary to have if you want to confirm that the delegate apportionment was done correctly.

Now, it's true that SOME PEOPLE, like Altherion, raised the issue of the raw vote totals because they think it is independently important to know if Sanders actually won the raw vote totals even though he lost the caucus. You can disagree with that view - I don't really think it matters that much myself. 

But Mudguard, for example, who you directly responded to in this post in which you quoted this post - wants the raw data released specifically to confirm the accuracy of the caucus results. He specifically says, in that post,: "Why not provide access to the data that confirms the results so that this is quickly put to bed?" 

Now, it's true that Mudguard didn't specifically say the magic words "delegate allocation" in his post - but that's implicit in what he's saying. The proper allocation of delegates is the result of the caucus that he's seeking confirmation of. 

The only reason this is an issue is because you, after the fact, started this whole line of obscurantist argument that the raw numbers don't matter and people only care about the raw numbers. Yes, some people care about the raw numbers because they think the raw numbers are intrinsically valuable to knowing who the people of Iowa really voted for. But other people, like Mudguard, and like the Des Moines Register, care about the raw numbers because you cannot confirm the accuracy of the Iowa Caucus results without them, because they are THE key inputs into determining whether the delegates were allocated appropriately.