Obama Wins The National Popular Vote (I Think)

by: Chris Bowers

Wed Jun 04, 2008 at 00:19


Entering tonight's voting, according to my tabulations, Barack Obama held a 357 vote lead in the national popular vote, with a 24,000 vote margin of error.

With 97% 99% reporting in South Dakota, Clinton holds a 10,204 10,516 vote lead.

With 30% 56% reporting in Montana, Obama holds a 15,840 20,827 vote lead.

Add it altogether, and Obama is headed for a victory in the national popular vote. While it remains to be seen if he will move beyond the "margin of error" in my tabulations, I also freely admit that there are numerous other possible tabulations other than my own. For example, Poblano has a popular vote counter with at least 972 possible totals. So, there probably won't ever be a final, consensus total on this matter. Overall, most of the totals favor Obama.

No matter what you think of the popular vote totals, and no matter which popular vote total you subscribe to, I think we can all agree that the nomination process requires significant reform. If you had absolute power over the nomination process, what changes would you make?

Chris Bowers :: Obama Wins The National Popular Vote (I Think)

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Obama Wins The National Popular Vote (I Think) | 48 comments
Unlimited Power, eh? (4.00 / 3)
I would:

-Divide the country into 6 to 8 regions and hold contests in one region every other week starting in January.

-Get rid of caucuses and only allow primaries.

-Get rid of the Super Delegates.

-Ensure that the primaries are either all closed or all semi open.

-Keep the proportional allocation of delegates.

Seconded except for caucuses... (4.00 / 1)
Which I'm sort of on the fence about...

To be honest, ever since the Texas Prima-Caucus, despite the confusion of it, I've sort of thought it'd be a cool idea.  Maybe it's because I'd just love to participate in a caucus some day (without knowing whether I'd actually ever move to a caucus state), but I think there are a lot of net-positives to a caucus... combine the two, and you have a system which brings out both the maximum number of people AND tests the strength of each candidates activists, who will clearly be necessary going into the general election.

[ Parent ]
Kill the caucuses (4.00 / 1)
Someone made reference to the "battered wife" caucus vote.

The one good thing about caucus voting, the transfer of votes from eliminated candidates to avoid vote splitting, could be used for the primaries.  It's done in general elections for example in Ireland.

Let the country get used to proportional representation in primaries for a few years.  Once they realize what a great idea it is, propose a constitutional amendment for national voting.

Caucuses are a uniquely stupid idea.

[ Parent ]
Not sure I like a "National Primary" either... (0.00 / 0)
I kind of like the "race" timeline... allows people to get to know the candidates better, and also to focus on state and regional issues a little at a time rather than trying to make a mad scramble around the entire country at once.

Not only that, once you open it up into a single, national contest, most of the campaigning would go exclusively to the big states and big cities.  I'm just not sure how I feel about this.

Initially, I feel like I'd prefer a shorter primary season, not necessarily a single day one... Someone else mentioned 6-8 regional primaries... that sounds about right to me.

[ Parent ]
Some changes (0.00 / 0)
I like the rotating regional primaries but start later.  I don't mind ending in June--I like that.  But start in mid-February, at the earliest.

And caucuses are fine, for smaller (in population) states.  They are cheaper.  But not for any state over some arbitrary limit, like 2 million.

Let states decide whether to be open or closed.  It may be good for party building in some states in some years.

And keep the superdels but cut their number in half.  Let the national committee people have only half a vote vs the electeds.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
Notice Clinton claims (4.00 / 5)
more primary votes than anyone else.  

every vote counts- As long as your state doesn't hold caucuses I guess.

What has John McCain done for veterans?

Regional primaries (0.00 / 0)
The biggest benefit this season was having all the voters involved. Usually, by the time I vote in PA, the primary race is over. That is fundamentally unfair. We need to have a compressed primary. Personally, I'd like to have it all on one day, but I know that will never happen. Regional primaries are the next best step.

Switching to pure popular vote (zero delegates) has problems. One being that small states wouldn't matter. The second being, what happens if before the convention the winner of the popular vote then gets caught on a boat with a woman who isn't his wife?

I'm not sure what to do about superdelegates. I understand one reason to have them is to ensure participation at the convention by party members. There certainly needs to be fewer of them, though!

All delegates should be forced to commit to a candidate publicly by the time the primary season ends. No waiting until the convention!

Is it mathematically possible to ensure that each district gets assigned an odd number of delegates? That way, fighting for 50%+1 becomes important.

And Puerto Rico and Guam?! What the heck? Why does Puerto Rico have so many damn delegates? That's ridiculous.

on the delegates (0.00 / 0)
Remember that although 4 delegate districts tended to split 2-2, in a 3-way race they'd be 2-1-1.  Meanwhile, the lovely 3 delegate districts, which produced positives in this race, would go 1-1-1.

So I don't think there is any advantage to even over odd.  

 

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

[ Parent ]
Just to add... (0.00 / 0)
If we're going to continue using delegates, then that's the metric we need to use...

If we're going to use the popular vote, then that's the metric we're going to use.

We shouldn't use both, since it doesn't make sense.  Maybe this is something that should be "signed off" on by all the candidates before the primaries start, something John Cole suggested a ways back as "signing day" or something.  That would put all the candidates down as understanding the rules, what the contest is for, which contests are sanctioned, etc.

LOL (0.00 / 0)
I have Clinton saying and writing that Michigan doesn't count.    What good does an agreement do?



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

[ Parent ]
Much more explicit... (4.00 / 1)
And I don't remember it in writing... she said on a radio that "it won't count", and the pledge was apparently ambiguous enough that the word "participate" could mean a few different things.

If they had to sign something that said "I understand that this is about delegates, that these states are not having a sanctioned contest and any contest they have will never be recognized" etc etc... make it bullet proof.

[ Parent ]
The biggest issue here (4.00 / 4)
Is that state legislatures have the power to specify open or closed primaries and to set primary dates. How do you get elected officials--even if they are Democrats, but especially if they are Republicans--to conform to a party nominating schedule 100% of the time?

Also, some states simply can not have closed or even semi-open primaries because there is no party registration in these states (for example, Virginia). State and national parties cannot compel individual states to follow the nominating rules. (Though certainly there may be significant pressure to do so, and perhaps a movement in that direction is possible).

Also, if one wishes to abolish caucuses, you first have to convince the state parties. In many states caucuses are part of a cultural tradition...in Iowa they are in the state constitution!

In my opinion, the ideal would be to have primary contests where both Democrats and independents could participate (the advantage being that the victor would have at least some appeal to independents, needed in the GE). They would be scheduled on a regional basis in two week blocks, but not all the states in a region would go at once. Every few days a large state or a few small states in the region would vote until the two week block is over. After each regional block votes there will be a week or so until the next region votes. Regions and states within regions will rotate from cycle to cycle.

Delegates will not be apportioned according to Congressional district any longer. This leads to all kinds of undemocratic results where a candidate can get 20-30% of the vote and still tie in delegates in that district. Instead, delegates will be apportioned on a statewide basis according to the candidates' proportion of the vote statewide.  

but I want delegates (4.00 / 1)
from my region of the state, not from corrupt North Jersey.  Just kidding about the corrupt part.  

You need to ensure some geographic diversity, though I imagine it can be done.



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

[ Parent ]
I agree (0.00 / 0)
Geographical diversity is important, and I'm sure parties could require it in the same way that there are gender quotas for the delegate positions (at least in my state). My point is that the delegate breakdown for the competing candidates should not be determined by district because it can lead to some strongly undemocratic (and semi-arbitrary) delegate breakdowns.  
[ Parent ]
Exactly- how do you enforce it (4.00 / 1)
I don't think the party has any way to force states to have open or closed primaries. So how do you enforce it?

If its just a popular vote, do you cut the number of votes in half? You won't have any way to seperate out the Democrats from the Republicans.  

[ Parent ]
I just don't think it will happen (0.00 / 0)
We may get a change in the total number of delegates, and perhaps a change in how delegates are awarded. The calendar will definitely get changed in some way. It is unlikely, but possible, that caucuses could be abolished or--more likely--reduced in number.

But there is really no way that a closed (presidential) primary system will be put in place in every state. And in my opinion, this decision cannot and should not be made by the national party. It is up to the states and the state parties to determine what kind of primary system (open, closed, semi-open, or no party regisration) they want. I personal prefer a semi-open primary where independents can participate because I believe this leads to stronger nominee for the party (unfortunately, a sentiment my state does not share).  

[ Parent ]
Caucuses are good. We need more. (4.00 / 3)
But, we need to change the way they are run to increase participation.
I would ban caucuses for presidential selection (0.00 / 0)
The benefits do not outweigh the unfairness of limiting participation, not allowing a secret ballot, etc.

I seriously doubt that any state other than Iowa derives a big party-building benefit out of holding caucuses either. In Iowa you've got several campaigns working every precinct for months. In other states you get a very compressed campaign, so the precinct-level organizing is much less effective.

You get the depressed turnout of a caucus, but not any significant benefits.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
Primary-Caucuses (4.00 / 4)
I honestly think that, despite the bad air these got, they are a fairly good idea, for the following reasons:

1. It gives everyone a chance to influence the primary.

2. It also gives extra power to the most important members of the party, the activists. While the Democratic Party represents all people, it is severely indebted to those who give their lives to the party, and so giving them some extra say only seems fair.

3. It allows for party building, as evidenced in Kos's recent post, while at the same time not completely disenfranchising those who might not have the time to be activists.

Now, I would say that the caucus portion should only make up about 20%-25% of the delegates, thus an important portion, but not overwhelmingly biased in the favor of activists.

Some may say that this, while more democratic than pure caucuses, is still giving more votes to one section of the population, likely taking power away from the poor. Fact is, this is the case in all elections, with the poor generally voting less. But, often ignored in these statistics is the fact that less educated people tend to vote less as well, meaning that these caucuses also tend to have people better versed in the issues. Thus, I think the increased party building and participation in local parties outweighs the slight disadvantage presented in this system.

As far as the lay out of the Primary, I don't agree with the National Primary, which doesn't allow the people to truly get to know the candidates like Iowa and New Hampshire have, and which is one of the main reasons given for the need of reform. To stop obsession with early, momentum building states, I think that the order of the states should be random each Primary, and chosen by lottery or some such system, thus allowing each state to have a random chance to get to know the candidates, without creating less opportunity for smaller states with fewer delegates to get to know the candidates in depth.

I think the space between states should be somewhat even, be it a region every month, a few states every week, or whatever it takes to stop a Super Tuesday situation with smaller states being ignored (as happened with Clinton, and before this campaign, usually worked, and actually did work for John McCain on the Republican side).

Finally, I think closed Primaries are the way to go, and if not them at least semi-closed (allowing Independents), because I truly think Democrats, not Republicans, should decide the nomination (and this coming from a supporter of a candidate who did well amongst Republican cross-over voters pre-Limbaugh). This also has the benefits of increasing the Democratic Party ranks, as was seen with the 3 million new Dems this season.

I'm under no illusions that it would all end up like this, but in my perfect world, this is what I would do.

Former Edwards Supporter, Obama Supporter since January 30, 2008

Oh yeah, no more Superdelegates n/t (4.00 / 1)


Former Edwards Supporter, Obama Supporter since January 30, 2008
[ Parent ]
Must be the Edwards connection (0.00 / 0)
I just had the exact same comment/idea further down.
[ Parent ]
the mixed caucus-primary system is crazy (4.00 / 2)
I have no doubt that Kos would hate it too, but for the fact that it allowed Obama to claim that he won Texas.

I would ban caucuses for presidential selection purposes. They could be held for dealing with the party platform and selecting delegates for county conventions, but every state should have a primary with normal voting hours and absentee ballot options.

The vast majority of states that hold caucuses get no significant party-building benefit from them. Iowa is an exception because multiple campaigns are working at the precinct level for months. That did not happen in any of the states that held caucuses this February. The Nevada caucuses were a shambles.

No more superdelegates, obviously.

I would change the way pledged delegates are allocated. It should not be possible for one candidate to win the popular vote in a state while a different candidate wins more pledged delegates from that state.

It also should not be possible for one candidate to gain as many net pledged delegates from winning a low-turnout caucus in a small state as another candidate gains from winning a large-state primary by 200,000 votes.

I would like the overall popular vote winner to get a large pledged delegate bonus to reduce the chance of one candidate winning the majority of the pledged delegates while a different candidate wins the popular vote.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
Small states to start are good (4.00 / 3)
But why do we need them to be the same small states every time? Why not rotate that?
No more allocating delegatesa tthe district level (4.00 / 2)
it makes the process arcane as hell, and it also severely de-links delegate counts from vote counts.

And of course, fixing the primary calendar to something sane.

Keep the caucuses, get rid of SDs (4.00 / 1)
Problems:
1. Caucuses are hard for many people to get to and they are less open.
2. But caucuses are better party builders and get activists energized and organized.
3. Caucuses also force a candidate to organize REALLY hard and make them less reliant on TV.
4. Super delegates are a very undemocratic way to elect a president.

So.....

Why not have some system like Texas where a state has both a caucus and a primary and we get rid of super-delegate votes? We could have the caucus vote take the place of the super-delegate so it's only like 33% or 25% of the total delegates needed to win. The problem would be the extra cost to the states to hold to simultaneous elections, but I haven't seen the states that had both this year complain about it.

As I see it, you kill two birds with one stone because you eliminate caucuses being the sole determinant of delegates in a state, but you still reward those activists who really make the party work. You also get rid of super-delegates have so much say so over the process. It would all be decided by voters. I guess that's actually three birds with one stone.

FuzzyPrimaries (4.00 / 1)
1. Create a rotating system in which a different bloc of states - balanced by size, location, and demographics - constitute the first wave of primaries for each cycle.  Within the first bloc, the smallest states should still go first.  

2. Abolish caucuses as allocators of delegates.  If states want to use them in addition to primaries for other purposes, fine.

3. Make all primaries open or semi-open.

4. Abolish superdelegates.

5. Keep proportional representation, but make each state assign all delegates proportional to the state-wide vote - ie, get rid of district-level apportionment.

6. Make the selection of actual delegates a simple process that must occur within two weeks of each contest.  No more multiple-stage delegate selection nonsense.

7. Make pledged delegates legally bound, conditional on the release of the candidate - ie, no more of this "technically, even pledged delegates can vote for whom they want" stuff.

8. Make delegates released by any candidate automatically apportioned among the remaining candidates in the race according to their respective vote totals in the states where those delegates were originally awarded.

Note that without superdelegates and with provisions seven and eight, there is no path to a floor fight among two candidates.  Somebody will always win a majority, and that majority will be incontrovertible.

John McCain: Health insurance for low income children represents an "unfunded liability."

disaster waiting to happen (0.00 / 0)
Add your #4 to your #7 and this is a recipe for a future disaster. If our future hypothetical nominee commits a felony (or some other equally damaging scandal) in June there's nothing the party can do to change it's mind before the convention or at the convention? You sure that's a good idea?
[ Parent ]
Point taken (0.00 / 0)
We would have to strike number seven or have some provision about circumstances under which delegates could be released of their own accord.

John McCain: Health insurance for low income children represents an "unfunded liability."
[ Parent ]
Regional Voting? (4.00 / 1)
Can someone explain the advantages of regional voting?  Everyone talks about how great it is but I don't really see what it is good for.  Why wouldn't you want diversity throughout the process?
I'd like caucuses in all 50 states (0.00 / 0)
If somebody isn't able to devote a few hours to caucusing, they aren't going to be able to devote a lot of time to volunteering for the candidate in the fall.  Do we really want to encourage a system where where we could end up with a nominee that the majority wants to vote for but nobody wants to vote for?  Why shouldn't the people who are going to be donating several hundred hours of their mortal existence to the nominee have more of a say than people who show up to vote and donate $20?  

I'm pretty sure I delivered 25-30 votes for John Kerry, and I didn't do nearly as much as I could have.  Why shouldn't my vote count more?

Oh, and screw the popular vote.  If the popular vote is going to matter, we might as well let NY, MA and CA decide the whole thing and skip voting everywhere else.  The whole point of doing it the way we do now is to make sure that the country's cultural diversity is represented as fairly as possible while still respecting basic federalism.

have you ever tried to turn out voters for a caucus? (4.00 / 1)
Do you have any idea how frustrating it is for people who want to vote but can't because they have to work that night, or they are housebound because of an illness, or because they have family obligations, like small children or a very sick relative?

What about the people who don't like being in a large crowd or prefer to keep their political preferences private? Should those people's votes not count?

It is heartbreaking for people who want to participate in the process but are unable to caucus through no fault of their own.

If you talked with some of these people, I think you would change your views on the subject.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.

[ Parent ]
Hold it Online (4.00 / 1)
A much better party building exercise than caucuses would be to require all voters to register on Democrats.org and vote online:

A Proposal for the Next Democratic Presidential Primary Season: Hold It Online

Leftmost Bit

In Ibaxter land (0.00 / 0)
All contests must have an absentee option. If it's a caucus, you have to be able to send your vote even if you aren't there.

There is an election every week, maybe one 2 week break in the middle. The whole thing can take AT MOST 3 months (This race has killed me). Every week, approximately the same number of people should vote (determined by a share of the total population). So one year, it might be Montana, Indiana and Delaware voting first, the next year it would be New York  voting first. If necessary, you would split California into two :).

I don't like the national primary day, because it gives too much advantage to the front runner.

I think you still keep Delegates, but no supers voting on the first ballot.  The penalties for breaking the rules are clear: you lose 20% of your delegates for every week you are off your scheduled date. No absentee ballots, no delegates.

Chris, your margin of error maybe... (0.00 / 0)
In Gallatin County and Lewis and Clark in MT... given how much has reported and the current numbers there, there MIGHT be enough to get you out of your "margin of error" in the popular vote that you were concerned about.

I personally don't think it matters at all, but in case you were looking to see if it were possible... It seems like the margins will be made up likely in those counties (and no idea what's going on in Mineral, or who it favors, or how many people there... etc).

Or not... (0.00 / 0)
Guess the big precincts there had already reported... with less than 50% reporting he had a 5k lead there, suggesting he could make up another 5k, but doesn't seem like that will happen.
[ Parent ]
Margin of error (0.00 / 0)
It doesn't look like Obama quite got the net 24,000 votes to put his lead outside the margin of error. While in one sense it doesn't matter, it does make a difference to me personally that we should be nominating the candidate that got the most votes.

But there is another factor that eases my mind. In many of the later primaries, there was a real effort by some Republicans to vote for Clinton. If even 1% of Clinton's vote total is a result of these efforts, that translates into at least 100,000 votes. In my mind, Obama clearly won the Democratic popular vote.

In general, I think open primaries are a bad idea for this reason. It produces a system where the Democratic nominee could be gamed by Republicans.  

[ Parent ]
Primaries still gamed... (0.00 / 0)
Republicans registered as Democrats...  Don't think we'll be able to stop that.

The best way to avoid it is to shorten the primary schedule so that it's less likely there will be a huge time difference between when the Republicans and Democrats choose their nominee.

[ Parent ]
I like caucuses (0.00 / 0)
Except they play to large a part of the process or not large enough. I also think we all can now see the benifits of the process touching all states. Additionally we need to allow less known candidates a chance. To do that we probably need the season to run just about as long as this one.

So if I could wand my magic wand I'd want every state to hold both a caucus, a closed primary and finish up with a national open primary.

The national primary probably is out of reach so here is the proposal without it.

The primary season shall be divided into to parts. No more than 2/3 of the allocated delegates can be awarded in either part. At least 1/2 of all delegates shall be awarded proportionally in accordance with the states method of Electoral Vote selection. All allocations shall be rounded to the nearest whole delegate.

Proposed calender
Jan: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina (as Historical Exemptions)
Fed-March round one caucuses preferred
April-May round two primaries preferred

Enforcement and enticement:
States that do not hold an event in each period lose 1/3 of the delegates (the minimum that could be awarded in that period). The party can still use additional delegates as an enticement for states to follow the preferred pattern.  

Why have historical exemptions? (0.00 / 0)
Aren't they part of the problem? These states get way more attention and (in most years) have way more say in the process than the rest of us. We need to rotate who goes first to fix that.

[ Parent ]
Just a few simple (or not so...) fixes (0.00 / 0)
1. Require a verifiable voting trail
2. No "superdelegates"
3. Allow caucuses or primaries, but require that absentee voting be available for anyone
4. Prohibit open primaries (semi-open are fine)
5. Rotate the early states (among smaller states, or at least cheaper-media-market states)
why the rush to "fix" things (0.00 / 0)
If there had been no caucuses this year, it would have favored Clinton. So do you really want to change it?
If you have a national primary, it favors money and known candidates (which is why Obama couldn't make as much of a dent in CA,NJ,MA on Super Tuesday as his media coverage would have suggested--just not enough time...)
If you have regional primaries, you get regional bias--the South tends to favor Southerners historically; New England still has a regional flavor.  Besides, that's what plane travel is for.
I was part of the Jesse Jackson campaign in '88 and worked on changing the rules to the system more proportional (and thus opened the door for an Obama candidacy to succeed), so I do have a bias.  But I've been involved in activist electoral politics since McGovern's campaign, and this was a great upset, and a fascinating race.
So why make big changes in the system?
I'm working on a diary (0.00 / 0)
So I'll probably have more in a week or so when I'm finished with finals.

Briefly, I'd like to have a few introductory contests (but not Iowa or New Hampshire) that would be cheap and based around retail politics, allowing insurgent candidates to make a play for the nomination.

After perhaps five contests, I'd have three or four Super Tuesday style contests, separated by no more than two weeks, all but the last of which would be regional. There would be no contests after that. This is because whilst the 2008 contest has built the party, having a variety of small and idiosyncratic states voting long after the nomination was almost decided hasn't been helpful.

To keep insurgent candidacies going, the first Super Tuesday would allocate a small sum to any candidate who got more than 10% in at least four of the previous contests, provided that that candidate had raised less than $Xm. This would allow them to fund their ground game but not to show much in the way of ads. After that first big contest, they'd be on their own.

I would eliminate superdelegates but institute caucuses in every state who would choose a limited number of delegates (10-20% of the state total.) It would be understood that these were the places which were intended for those who might otherwise be superdelegates.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

Honestly? (0.00 / 0)
I'd scrap the whole thing and go to a Parliamentary system. If the last eight years have shown us anything, it's that this system has some serious flaws.  
Changes (0.00 / 0)
The current system has many problems, but it also works pretty well in many ways, particularly in letting voters around the country meet the candidates and hear them address local/regional concerns. Also, party activists dedicated to the cause have more influence and votes than individual voters (especially Republicans who are trying to strategically spoil the contest by voting for a bad Democratic canidate).

Having small states go first seems useful in allowing lots of person-to-person campaigning.

Having small states at the end just drags the process out and makes the voters in those states feel like their votes don't matter.

Having the process stretch out over 5 months just seems too long -- especially if the campaigning actually starts a year earlier.

So I would have the process start at the beginning of March and finish in early June -- 12 weeks long. Each week there would be primaries or caucuses balanced by region and demographics. Small states would be first, medium size states in the middle, and all the large states at the end in a few big Super Tuesday elections that would decisively decide the nomination.

This would preserve the good aspects of the current system while reducing some of the negatives.

Small states first (0.00 / 0)
Really reduces the influence of cities, which are where most of the people in the US live.

[ Parent ]
Could Be a Problem (0.00 / 0)
Yes, thanks for bringing this up. Living in a rust-belt city (Cleveland) where there are lots of unmet needs, I see the need for cities to have more influence on the federal government.

However, I can think of several smaller states that have relatively large urban populations (DC, RI, HI, NV) that might provide some demographic balance to states like NH, MT, ME, and AK. By having a relatively short primary season (12 weeks), it should be possible for candidates to remain in the race until a number of states with diverse demographics (like IA, OH, MI, NC, WA) have voted -- as long as the media doesn't prematurely declare a victor after the first contest.

[ Parent ]
possible reforms (0.00 / 0)
1. Require states, whether primary or caucus, to have a system which permits absentee voting and counting of write in votes. It doesn't seem democratic to prevent people who have work or family commitments, or who are physcially unable to attend a caucus, from voting. I believe Maine allowed absentee voting at its caucus.  And, not counting the Michigan write in votes made no sense.  People should be allowed to vote for whom they want, and their votes should be counted.
2. Reduce, but not eliminate, the superdelegates, or. alternatively, award them on the basis of the primary/caucus results.  If elected offficials and party leaders have to run for delegate, they will bump out the citizen activists who currently can run. My district in NH has a bunch of delegates (both Clinton and Obama delegates) who have not been delegates below and who aren't elected officials. That is a really good thing.
3. Keep proportionate representation. Although my candidate probably would have been the nominee under winner take all, Sen. Obama won in part because he campaigned everywhere - and candidates should campaign in all 50 states.
Not a lot of tinkering is required; this cycle, while painful at times, generated a lot of excitement and a lot of new voters.  In the long run, it will help in November, because organizations are built in every state, there is energy in every state.
congressional district-based electors (0.00 / 0)
One elector (delegate) per congressional district, and two at-large electors per state. State parties decide how electors will be chosen (primary or caucus). All states are required to tabulate popular vote totals. Keep the superdelegate concept, but reduce their numbers by only allowing governors and party officials to be superdelegates. (Representatives and senators are not superdelegates but can be chosen as electors.)

As for schedule, the DNC has total control. Any State that does not conform to the DNC's wishes regarding schedule is automatically disqualified from seating any electors, and any candidate who puts his or her name on such a state's ballot is automatically penalized somehow.

The truth about Saxby Chambliss

Obama Wins The National Popular Vote (I Think) | 48 comments
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