Discussion: Des Moines Register Calls For Audit Of Iowa Dem Caucus: 'Something Smells'

TPM Article Topics
#165

Nit-picking to avoid the issue at hand.

If voter support totals are so inconsequential, why did Team Clinton proclaim victory at 3:25AM Tuesday morning? It couldn’t have been based on the delegates, or even delegate equivalents, since you assert they won’t become important or even known until June.

It is the perception of winning more voters that campaigns spin to raise their voter support in ensuing contests, to raise donor support to fund these efforts, and to attack opponents’ campaigns. Winning more voters is the universal measure that the non-wonkish public and the media understand.

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#166

To compare the physical tally sheets with the precinct numbers recorded and reported by the IDP. The DMR article noted that discrepancys have already been noted within the few precincts already sampled.

#167

But not so shocked about the appearance of bias apparently.

#168

Next time instead of coin tosses they will have a bowl off.

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#169

I like this idea, though I would suggest starting with a selection of small states and scaling up to the biggest states last, to give retail politics a chance to influence opinion, while giving the big states a decent chance of still having a deciding voice by the time we get to them.

#170

They want public access to the official precinct totals reported to/recorded by the IDP to check for discrepancys. The IDP chairwoman won’t release the official numbers.

Conspiracy theorys have been charged by and to the Clintons for a long time. Conspiracy already theorys abound from this particular three-days old election; TPM threads alone confirm that. The hope is that transparent verification of the numbers will prevent the 2016 Iowa caucus from poisoning the Democratic Party candidates throughout the rest of the primarys and the general election.

Anyone concerned about the November election should seemingly welcome the chance to nip this particular conspiracy in the bud. The chance to elect America’s first Jewish or first woman President depends on a unified and humungous turnout.

#171

Maybe they should start using an app which provides an actual record of what went down.

The short form of this whole kerfuffle is that the Sander’s camp slandered the Iowa caucuses.

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#172

Agreed and stipulated regarding paper ballots. However there are the precinct “raw data” sheets and the IDP data sheets of reported/recorded precinct numbers. Some discrepancys (cutting both ways) have already been found from just a few precincts sampled. The “recount” consists of comparing precinct data sheets with IDP data sheets.

#173

Sounds kinky and weird. No wonder there’s an investigation!

3 Likes
#174

Or better yet, why not just name a hereditary monarch and we can avoid this distraction entirely!

Just think — no more campaign ads or robocalls, no more dirty money in politics, and all the money saved could be channeled into, er…the monarch’s Arabian horse collection.

#175

In your mind, does your graphic show they aren’t giving her as much money this year because they don’t need to (i.e. she’s staying bought) — or because she’s not the Wall Street favorite at all this time around?

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#176

Sander’s camp is whining bitterly about Bernie getting bernt with a 02 loss. What I find really weird in a campaign which claims its share of former Obama campaigners is the claim that they did not know that they needed to have people at each caucus to help run it.

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#177

The ‘arcane’ formula rests on basically the same rationale as do legislative districts with two twists. The legislative districts are set up so that they contain an equal number of people but once that is done it’s whoever turns out which determines who gets that seat. In the caucus system it’s based on the number of people who voted Democratic (first twist) but they use the existing legislative districts and weight the delegates so that each Democratic voter has an equal weight (second twist.). So if you live in a Republican district, your district having very few Democratic voters will be given very few delegates. If you live in a district which votes heavily Democratic, you will get a lot of delegates. And, again, those who turn out in a district are held to represent the wishes of that district.

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#178

I agree, however, I find it very hard to believe that no one recorded the vote count at each site and that no one forwarded those figures to Dim Party HQ as the story indicates. It would not in the least surprise me that numbers were fixed. For many years I was a poll watcher, for both REPUGS and DIMS, and saw more than once a party official say that so and so was scheduled to win at this site and switch counts to make it so during primary season. Never saw the same during the general elections.

#179

Bernie’s supporters are berning a lot of bridges.

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#180

Hey, if they want to waste everyone’s time rechecking the math on the precinct tally sheets, I suppose so. But this is less than a nothing burger and only coddles those agitating to cry foul because their preferred candidate didn’t get the result they liked.

#181

The “L” you say! Thanx.

Little Opie is still alive, isn’t he? He’ll do! (emoji here!)

#182

They did. And I hope that your use of the word “dim” is simply an autocorrect induced error or an honest typo.

#183

Of course not. This is a Republican newspaper, all they are doing is trying to muddy the waters surrounding the Dem primaries. It’s called “concern trolling”.

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#184

Given the ethnic heritage of Iowans, the bowlers should be prepared for duck-pins.

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