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Caucus Math

by: Drew Miller

Thu Mar 01, 2007 at 16:13:37 PM CST

Caucus math is hard. So I made a spreadsheet to deal with it. This is based on the 2004 rules, and can't deal with every situation. At some point I will probably make a web form to do it.

Interesting thing about caucus math:

There are situations where it will be in your group's interest to send people to someone else. If you can make a minor candidate viable in your precinct, there is about a good chance that your making them viable will rob your opponent of a delegate instead of you.

I realize this is not exactly Democratic, but it is exactly the kind of crap that I love. :-)

Drew Miller :: Caucus Math

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Caucus Math | 5 comments

this happened in my precinct in 1988 (4.00 / 1)

The first time I was old enough to vote, I caucused for Illinois Senator Paul Simon. In my precinct only three candidates were viable: Simon, Dukakis and Babbitt. We had the largest group. When people broke into preference groups, it looked like Simon was going to get 3 delegates, Dukakis 2 and Babbitt 1.

The Dukakis and Babbitt people got together and realized that if some people switched fromd Dukakis to Babbitt, it would change the math (Simon was a greater threat to Dukakis than Babbitt).

So even though no one defected from our Simon group, our precinct ended up allocating 2 delegates each to Simon, Dukakis and Babbitt.

I was really mad!

Invite other Iowa political junkies to join us at Bleeding Heartland.

by: desmoinesdem @ Thu Mar 01, 2007 at 22:24:23 PM CST

by: you @ soon

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I have seen this backfire too. (0.00 / 0)

At my 2004 caucus, the Kerry people shifted some votes to Edwards, thinking that it would cost Dean a delegate, but they miscounted, and the new Edwards delegate came from Kerry, not Dean.

by: corncam @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 10:09:59 AM CST

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I think I used your spreadsheet in '04 (0.00 / 0)

I was a Dean precinct captain. I brought a spreadsheet that the local coordinator (can't bring his name up right now, tall lanky guy, curly blonde hair, smart as hell) gave me. I had one kid doing head counts of the other groups as I plugged in numbers. It saved us a couple of delegates as we scrambled to deal with the Little Big Horn moment, i.e. where the hell did all those Kerry supporters come from?

Invaluable tool. Don't nead a laptop either. If you have a PDA with Windows CE you can use it from a handheld.

"Being Irish he possessed an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through brief episodes of joy." - W. B. Yeats

the cman blog

by: cman @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 16:01:11 PM CST

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Web Form (0.00 / 0)

Eventually I'll make it with a javascript web form, so it should be usable from any web-enabled cell phone. :-)

by: Drew Miller @ Fri Mar 02, 2007 at 16:41:18 PM CST

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