• Voter Suppression in Caucuses
• Disenfranchised Voter Groups & Statistics
• Differential in Voter Turnout Rates
• Popular Vote Disparity
• Estimated Voter Suppression in 2008 Caucuses
• Caucus Systems Distort Election Results
• Vote-spread Differences
• Disproportionate Votes-to-Delegates Ratio
• More Math of Electability
• Other Primary versus Caucus Considerations
• 2008 Democratic Election Snapshot
• What IF: Florida & Michigan

• By the numbers, in 2008 primaries have averaged 400% greater voter turnout in eligible voters than caucuses.

• Of the 33.5 million popular votes in the 2008 Democratic Primaries, caucus voters have
  collectively cast only 3.2% of the total or 1.1 million votes.

• the 13 caucus states have 23.2 million eligible voters. The average Democratic voter turnout in 2008 caucuses has been 4.5% versus 19.92% in primaries.

• 42% of Obama’s wins are caucus states, 95% of Clinton’s wins are primary states.

• Washington: On February 9, Washington held its statewide caucus and an estimated 245,000 caucus-goers – 5.3% of eligible voters – chose Obama over Clinton by 67.5% to 31.2%, a whopping 36-point margin. Ten days later, WA held a primary attended by 691,381 [15% of eligible voters, ie, almost 3 times the caucus turnout] and Obama won by 51.2% to 45.7%. [Citizens of WA voted-in a State-run Primary. However, the Party-run caucus results are still the legal results.]
  The impact:

  
  Washington allocated its 78 pledged delegates at a ratio of 2:1 [67% to 33%] and Obama got 52 versus Clinton’s 26. He gained 26 delegates. If the pledged delegates had been allocated according to the primary results, Obama would have won roughly 41 delegates compared to Clinton’s 37. He would be gained only 4 delegates. Bottom line: The caucus vs. primary election benefited Obama by a net 22 delegates – 14.5% of the 152 pledged delegates separating the two.

• Nebraska: On February 9, Nebraska held a caucus and only 3.04% of the 1.3 million eligible voters participated. Those 38,571 caucus-goers chose Obama over Clinton 68% to 32% and he won 16 of the 24 pledged delegates. In stark contrast, on May 13th, Nebraska held a primary where nearly 94,000 voters [7.5% of eligible voters] chose Obama by 49.4% to 46.6% ,– only 2.8% instead of the 36% vote-spread recorded in the caucus. If delegates were allocated on the results of the primary instead of the caucus, Obama and Clinton would have received 12 pledged delegates each.

  
  Bottom line: Obama’s 13,700 vote victory in the red-state Nebraska caucus netted him 8 pledged delegates. Compare that to Clinton’s 204,000 vote victory in the battleground state of Ohio which netted her only 9 pledged delegates.

Obama’s 138 pledged delegates lead derived from the 12 caucus states he won is only 18 less than Clinton’s 156 pledged delegates won from all of these hard-fought, primary states: California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, West Virginia, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

These Clinton-won states have a combined 220 electoral votes, 87.2 million eligible voters and cast a total of 18,400,000 votes in these primaries. Compare that with the Obama-won caucus states with a combined 69 electoral votes, 21.5 million eligible voters and only 944,000 total votes cast.

42% of Obama’s wins have been in caucus states wherein one-half have not voted Democratic since 1964, 70% voted Republican in 2004, 8 out of the 13 states had only 8,700 to 43,900 voters each and there is a total of 74 electoral votes for all caucus states.

• suppressed voter turnout in caucus vs. primary states
• lopsided vote-spread differential between Obama and Clinton in the caucus vs. primary states
• relative impact of caucus elections on the allocation of pledged delegates to each candidate
• disproportionate impact of caucus votes in relation to convention delegates

In 2008, the 34 primaries [excluding MI & FL] have produced an average .8 percent vote-difference between Obama and Clinton. By contrast, the 13 caucuses have had a 28 percent vote-spread.

Because of the restrictions inherent in the caucusing process, participants traditionally include the most motivated voters, party partisans & loyalists and voters strongly committed to a candidate and/or the voting process itself. Since this is generally a relatively small subset of all voters, true voter preferences can be skewed.

35 Primaries with 33.8 million voters have Clinton leading in both votes and delegates.
Caucuses with 1.1 million voters gave Obama 300,000 more votes and 193 more delegates.
....After 47 state elections to date, Obama leads Clinton by 152 pledged delegates. 97% of the difference – 148 delegates – is directly attributable to lopsided victories in caucus contests.

Though voters in all 13 caucus states have cast only 3.2% of the total 33.5 million votes so far – those votes control 15.3% of the pledged delegates and 16.4% of the Super delegates sent to the DNC Convention – average 15.5% of the total delegates [626 caucus / 4047 total]. After all remaining primaries the total votes could easily top 36 million, dropping the caucus vote to 2.9% of the total. In that event, 1 out of every 34 votes will determine and control 1 of every 6.5 delegates.

Bottom line: caucus voters will have a grossly disproportionate role in determining the 2008 Democratic nominee.

• 34 Primary States -32.4 Million Votes
• 13 Caucus States -1.1 Million Votes
• 3.2% of the vote controls 15.5% of the delegate selection for the 2008 Democratic Convention.