There are innumerable caveats to any popular vote total in the nomination campaign. Some states held primaries, while other held caucuses. Some primaries were open to all registered voters, others to only Democrats and Independents, and still others to only Democrats. The staggered primary calendar is another major issue, which resulted in many states having different candidates on the ballot, and voters with varying knowledge of results. Some states did not even keep popular vote totals. Michigan and Florida are also obviously major caveats. No campaigning took place in those states before the voting began, many voters stayed home because they were told the elections wouldn't count, and Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. Further, a nomination campaign is not about the popular vote, and there wasn't a single campaign that used the popular vote as a metric before the voting caucusing began. So, the popular vote is a contentious metric in the nomination campaign, to say the least.
However, whatever the difficulties of applying the value to the specific "election" that is the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination campaign, there is also an obvious value to the principle that the individual with the most support of the electorate should win any given election. Governing power should always derive from the popular will, and we should always work to make our system of government more democratic. The lack of a clear, consistent definition of the popular vote in the Democratic presidential nomination campaign speaks of the serious flaws in the process itself. For all of the reasons listed in the first paragraph, not only is there no universally accepted definition of the popular vote, but as a party we are also a long way from instituting a democratic form of intra-party governance. Major changes need to be made in advance of the 2012 nomination contest, and all future nomination contests, so that our election process better adheres to democratic principles.
As I have argued in the past, within the context of the 2008 Democratic nomination contest, any attempt to determine who won the "popular vote" should adhere to democratic principles itself, as best as can be done. This is because the "popular vote" is not a legal argument, and not specific to any campaign, but instead a moral one based on abstract principles of democracy. As such, popular vote totals should do the following:
- Include the will of all those who participated in delegate selection contests for the Democratic National Convention.
- Allocate only one vote to each participant in those contests.
- In cases where participants did not have their preferences recorded, do everything possible to estimate those preferences.
Failure to do this is to engage in the "popular vote" argument in bad faith, since it turns a moral argument about democratic principles into a selective, partisan argument about power. And yes, one side is more guilty of the other on this front. However, that does not lessen the principles involved--it lessens those who twist those values.
According to the above principles, with South Dakota and Montana left to vote, Hillary Clinton currently holds an extremely narrow 19,899-vote lead over Barack Obama in the popular vote. Here are the current totals:
Clinton: 17,916,763
Obama: 17,896,864
These totals include Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Washington, even though no official popular vote numbers were kept. They also include Florida, even though there was only minimal campaigning in the state before the primary took place and even though many people thought it wouldn't count. These totals also include Michigan, even though Obama's name was not on the ballot. They do, however, also allocate 72.91% of the "uncommitted" vote to Obama, which is the amount of the uncommitted vote exit polls indicate he would have received in the state had his name been on the ballot. In short, these numbers are the final line from the Real Clear Politics popular vote count, minus 64,504 votes in Michigan that came from people who indicated they would have supported either John Edwards or Bill Richardson, had they been on the ballot.
Now, with about 275,000 votes left to go in South Dakota and Montana, and with Obama holding double-digit leads in both states, it would be pretty surprising if Obama did not end up as the winner of the popular vote. Of course, since these are estimates, there is also a small margin of error in this count that might throw the outcome of the "popular vote" into question. Undoubtedly, supporters of both sides will also continue to push different totals, for all of the reasons listed above. However, this count is really the only popular vote total worth making, because it is the one that most closely adheres to the democratic principle of one person, one vote. It is, course, still imperfect.
Unless something surprising happens on Tuesday, Barack Obama will narrowly win the popular vote. Despite all of the imperfections in the system, that should still matter to anyone who holds democratic principles and intra-party democracy as valuable. Just as importantly, it should also make plain the need reform the process in determining our nominee, so that a disaster like this never happens again. While it is unlikely anyone reading his will ever live to see another nomination campaign this close, it isn't only close elections where adhering to democratic principles matter. We need to do everything we can to make sure that the system is as fair as possible to all of the people participating in the process, and about upholding our own values in the process, not just about electing the cult of personality of the month. That is a perspective that I think has been largely forgotten in this nomination campaign on both sides, and needs to be regained as quickly as possible.
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