Iowa Caucus Results Thread (pg 148 - full results)

[catographer]

If Sanders’ team really hated SDEs, they should’ve advocated to eliminate them after 2016. Which, to be fair, I would support; why do SDEs exist anyway??? Just use the vote totals like every other contest!

SDEs exist because of the structure of the Iowa caucuses. Precinct caucuses elect delegates to county conventions, which elect delegates to district and state conventions. State Delegate Equivalents are the equivalent of delegates to the state convention. From what I understand, it's how the Democrats have always computed the Iowa winner - at least since 1976. But we've never seen the first and final alignment votes until this cycle. Ironically, greater transparency is causing this issue.

I guess what I don’t understand is, why is the Iowa Democratic caucus so unique? The other Democratic and Republican caucuses, not even the GOP Iowa caucus, operates like this; they all just use vote totals.

[cinyc]

If Sanders’ team really hated SDEs, they should’ve advocated to eliminate them after 2016. Which, to be fair, I would support; why do SDEs exist anyway??? Just use the vote totals like every other contest!

SDEs exist because of the structure of the Iowa caucuses. Precinct caucuses elect delegates to county conventions, which elect delegates to district and state conventions. State Delegate Equivalents are the equivalent of delegates to the state convention. From what I understand, it's how the Democrats have always computed the Iowa winner - at least since 1976. But we've never seen the first and final alignment votes until this cycle. Ironically, greater transparency is causing this issue.

I guess what I don’t understand is, why is the Iowa Democratic caucus so unique? The other Democratic and Republican caucuses, not even the GOP Iowa caucus, operates like this; they all just use vote totals.

It's the way it's always been done, I suppose.

[jimrtex]

Am I missing something, or based on what the IDP is saying, if a precinct captain had written incorrectly that, say, Yang won 200,000 delegates in one precinct, they would be bound to that result and to add those delegates to the count?

It depends.

Did the Yang preference group at the caucus (i.e. Yang Gang) then choose 200,000 county delegates, and were their names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses written on a sheet with room for 16 persons, along with any other county delegates with other preferences?

Was the slate of delegates ratified by the caucus as a whole, and the sheet sent to the county auditor?

Was the worksheet that calculated the delegates signed by the caucus chair, the caucus secretary, and representatives of each candidate who received delegates (immediately adjacent to a statement that any misrepresentation would be prosecuted under state election law.

Under Iowa law, a county convention, CD convention, and state convention have the authority to file vacancies in nomination. The vacancy can result because a primary nominated no one, was inconclusive because no candidate received 35% of the vote, or the nominee withdrew or died, etc. Conventions also choose nominees for special elections. Delegates to a county convention serve a two-year term after they are elected at a precinct caucus.

The IDP has grafted presidential preferences onto an existing system of party governance. County delegates are chosen on a proportional basis.

If the precinct chair certified that Grant Wood, John Wayne, William Cody, Glenn Miller, Norman Borlaug, and James Van Allen were elected as county delegates, and the caucus ratified that result, it might be difficult to overturn that result even if under a different calculation, Herbert Hoover, Kevin Costner, Donna Reed, Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, Billy Sunday, George Washington Carver, or Alex Karras would have been elected.

The slate as a whole would have been ratified by the caucus, and that vote recorded in a document sent to the county auditor. It might be difficult to overturn. One of the wronged county delegates might have to sue. In 2016, the county delegates chose the state delegates. SDE was just a construct to estimate their influence. If 5 of 50 county delegates supported a particular presidential candidate, and that county elected 6 state delegates, then 5/50 x 6 = 0.6 SDE would be attributed to the presidential candidates. But in reality that presidential candidate would have either 0 or 1 state delegates supporting him.

In 2020, SDE are purely a mathematical construct. It might be possible for the IDP to correct the SDE calculation without changing the underlying county delegates, since the county delegates don't actually transmit their presidential preference onward.

In addition, there are errors in at least 15 counties where the total SDE is not an integer. Since the number of state delegates from every county is a whole number, the number of SDE from that county should be the same. In:

Black Hawk
Cherokee
Clay
Decatur
Dubuque
Harrison
Henry
Muscatine
Polk
Scott
Webster
Winneshiek
Woodbury
Satellite CD 3
Satellite CD 4

The total number of SDE is not a whole number. Either a precinct or precincts elected the wrong number of county delegates, reported the wrong number, or the IDP transcribed the wrong numbers. In any event that would have to be corrected.

[jimrtex]

If Sanders’ team really hated SDEs, they should’ve advocated to eliminate them after 2016. Which, to be fair, I would support; why do SDEs exist anyway??? Just use the vote totals like every other contest!

SDEs exist because of the structure of the Iowa caucuses. Precinct caucuses elect delegates to county conventions, which elect delegates to district and state conventions. State Delegate Equivalents are the equivalent of delegates to the state convention. From what I understand, it's how the Democrats have always computed the Iowa winner - at least since 1976. But we've never seen the first and final alignment votes until this cycle. Ironically, greater transparency is causing this issue.

I'm not sure about that history. County conventions have different numbers of delegate, that is not proportional to their number of state delegates.

It could have been that from 1972 onward that totals of county delegates were reported. If your precinct split between Muskie and McGovern, it would make sense that there were 3 Muskie county delegates and 2 McGovern delegates. You could add up the county delegates, and then total across all counties to get an estimate of county strength. Note that in 1972 and 1976 Uncommitted won both times. This suggests that people were still becoming familiar with the system.  

Caucus History from Des Moines Register

It is not clear what is being reported for the early years. It might be percentage of state delegates. The large numbers of uncommitted might be released delegates.

County results for 2000 and 2016 must be for state delegates (the percentages correspond to fractions of small integers).

Once they realized that county delegates were disproportionate to state delegates they (the press?) might have started using SDE.

The Green Papers has historical results since 2000. It is pretty muddled. Some years the results must have been based on county delegates because of the large number (15,000 or so). For 2016, they based their initial estimate on the popular vote, and then updated it after the county conventions.

I think you might have to trawl through the morgue from the Des Moines Register to determine how results were reported at the time.

Do you know at easy way to get the results from the IDP into a spreadsheet? I know a hard way, but it takes several hours to massage into a usable form.

[catographer]

God bless Iowa Democrats lmao.

Heck, I would be doing a better job at running this than them...

[jimrtex]

If Sanders’ team really hated SDEs, they should’ve advocated to eliminate them after 2016. Which, to be fair, I would support; why do SDEs exist anyway??? Just use the vote totals like every other contest!

SDEs exist because of the structure of the Iowa caucuses. Precinct caucuses elect delegates to county conventions, which elect delegates to district and state conventions. State Delegate Equivalents are the equivalent of delegates to the state convention. From what I understand, it's how the Democrats have always computed the Iowa winner - at least since 1976. But we've never seen the first and final alignment votes until this cycle. Ironically, greater transparency is causing this issue.

I guess what I don’t understand is, why is the Iowa Democratic caucus so unique? The other Democratic and Republican caucuses, not even the GOP Iowa caucus, operates like this; they all just use vote totals.

County conventions and state conventions in Iowa serve a functional purpose under Iowa statute. They serve to fill vacancies in nomination.

This occurs as a result of withdrawal, death, ineligibility of the nominee chosen in the primary; no nominee chosen in a primary - Iowa permits write-ins but they must receive a certain level of support; or inconclusive primary - Iowa requires 35% support to be nominated. Conventions are also used to choose nominees for special elections.

County convention delegates serve a two-year term. They aren't just robots who vote for delegates to the state convention.

[Xing]

Not sure a recanvass is really worth it if the IDP is going to be intentionally obtuse and refuse to correct any errors. Sanders is probably better off just cutting his losses, since it's one delegate, and a big win in New Hampshire will stall Buttigieg's momentum anyway.

[Tender Branson]

Can this abomination please be unsticked now ?

[Sorenroy]

Can this abomination please be unsticked now?

Candidates still have about an hour to request a recanvass, which will factor into who wins Iowa's final delegate. There is still a reason to have this up, at least for now.

[n1240]

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1226928467884859394

[Ljube]

Sore loser.

[Sorenroy]

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1226928467884859394

Does anyone have a timeline for the recanvass and anything else from Iowa?

[YE]

Can this abomination please be unsticked now ?

Given this is headed for a recanvass, it’s likely still worth stickying for now IMO.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In yet another frustrating little wrinkle, why is Vox reporting different (and seemingly more up-to-date) vote totals than AP and the other news organizations??

[MaxQue]

Sore loser.

Better being a sore loser than a fraudulent winner.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Sore loser.

Better being a sore loser than a fraudulent winner.

Just let Pete have the win, be a good sport. He isn't going to win anything else anyways.

[jimrtex]

So wait - the IDP didn’t skip the county delegate equivalent step when calculating the out-of-Iowa satellite caucuses, but did for the in-state satellite caucuses? And still somehow managed to screw up? Some of these screw ups appear to be on the official tally sheets. I think the IDP is taking the position that those can only be fixed at a recount requested by a candidate, if at all.

I have not looked at the instate caucuses.

You should. It appears they skipped the whole county equivalent delegate step and just allocated delegates proportionally to turnout. Because of the cap at 100, that favored the larger sites more than they should have - which generally benefited Sanders.

It's not clear whether the IDP is going to be able to fix this math error without a campaign asking for a formal recount or recanvass or whatever.

The results for the In-State Iowa Satellites (ISIS) for IA-1 is consistent with with the Out-Of-State Satellite results (OOSS) with one variation.

For OOSS the number of state delegates is based on the total attendance at all OOSS, in steps of 500, with a minimum of 2, There were 1186 persons attending, so the OOSS got 4 state delegates based on attendance between 1001-1500.

For ISIS, the number of state delegates is based on the total attendance at all ISIS in a CD, The number is based on a percentage of the conventional state delegates for the CD, with 1% for each 500 participants (or any fraction). In IA-1 there were 448 participants, so the ISIS will get 1% of the total conventional state delegates (560), or 5.60, which is rounded to a whole number of 6.

Since there are actual state delegates appointed from the OOSS and ISIS, this has to be a whole number. Participants at ISIS and OOSS could volunteer to be a state delegate. I think the presidential candidates will do the selection.

SDE are apportioned separately from allocation of state delegates, but are based on the same whole number.

That is the OOSS will have a total of 4 SDE, and the IA-1 ISIS will have a total of 6 SDE.

The SDE are apportioned among the satellite caucuses in strict proportion of participation.

For example, there were 71 participants at a retirement community in Grinnell. They were apportioned 71/448 of the 6 SDE for IA-1 (0.9509). Those (0.9509) were apportioned on the basis of preference group. Since the number of participants in the caucus was between 61-80, there were 7 delegate slots. A presidential candidate would get one slot for each 1/7th of the total. Therefore each slot was worth 1/7 of 0.9509 or 0.1358.

After realignment, the viable groups were:

Klobuchar 24, Buttigieg 17, Biden 14, Warren 14 (69 total, 2 disappeared).

Allocating these into 1/7 of the total:

Klobuchar 24/69 x 7 = 2.4348
Buttigieg 17/69 x 7 = 1.7246
Biden 14/69 x 7 = 1.4203
Warren 14/69 x 7 = 1.4203

Rounding in a way that produces a total of 7:

Klobuchar 3
Buttigieg 2
Biden 1
Warren 1

*** If 71 had been used as the divisor, then Biden and Warren would have flipped a coin for the 7th delegate slot, and Klobuchar would have lost a slot. This would seem to follow the rules, but is mathematically unsound.

Converting delegate slots to SDE by multiplying by 0.1358 (SDE per slot for caucus)..

Klubuchar 0.4075
Buttigieg 0.2717
Biden 0.1358
Warren 0.1358

Totalling the SDE for ISIS IA-1, produces the following result. There will also be actual state delegates elected. They won't have any effect on the national delegates (unless perhaps their are withdrawals before the state convention), but will be able to participate in selection of the delegates for their candidate, and in platform and rules debates.

Candidate	SDE	Delegates
Sanders	3.6531	4
Klobuchar	0.7423	1
Biden	0.6655	1
Buttigieg	0.4777	0
Warren	0.3943	0
Steyer	0.0670	0

[cinyc]

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1226928467884859394

Does anyone have a timeline for the recanvass and anything else from Iowa?

The result needs to be certified by February 29, under the state’s delegate plan - though I suppose they could extend it, like they did for recounts. Other than that, it depends on what Iowa’s Recount and Recanvass Procedural Manual says. Last I checked, I couldn’t find it online.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/IAStartingLine/status/1226972616461815809

Apparently Bernie isn't alone with a re-canvas request.

[Sorenroy]

In yet another frustrating little wrinkle, why is Vox reporting different (and seemingly more up-to-date) vote totals than AP and the other news organizations??

Vox, and the New York Times, and others (I'm sure) are reporting post-correction numbers. Specifically, numbers corrected after the Iowa Democratic Party corrected duplicated precincts and the like. Why they are reporting missing precincts when their numbers match correctly against those saying every single precinct has been counted, I'm not sure.



Also, sad to see sore losers... Sanders and Buttigieg... asking for a recanvass.

[cinyc]

In yet another frustrating little wrinkle, why is Vox reporting different (and seemingly more up-to-date) vote totals than AP and the other news organizations??

Vox, and the New York Times, and others (I'm sure) are reporting post-correction numbers. Specifically, numbers corrected after the Iowa Democratic Party corrected duplicated precincts and the like. Why they are reporting missing precincts when their numbers match correctly against those saying every single precinct has been counted, I'm not sure.



Also, sad to see sore losers... Sanders and Buttigieg... asking for a recanvass.

They're not sore losers for asking for a recanvass. In an ideal world, all the candidates would be asking for a recanvass and recount of the whole thing because getting the results right is more important than getting this over with fast.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The writers are really going over the top (click to play):

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1226987320022327296

[Progressive Pessimist]

Again, the best and easiest way to further improve the Iowa Caucus is to simply get rid of it, as with all other caucuses.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can we all stop bitching about "sore losers" and "sore winners" like this is a f**king game of Mario Kart and just be glad that this increases our chances of getting a slightly more accurate count of how people actually voted??

Jesus, no wonder Americans suck at running elections. It seems you people genuinely don't care about accuracy as an end in itself.

[Mr. Smith]

Can we all stop bitching about "sore losers" and "sore winners" like this is a f**king game of Mario Kart and just be glad that this increases our chances of getting a slightly more accurate count of how people actually voted??

Jesus, no wonder Americans suck at running elections. It seems you people genuinely don't care about accuracy as an end in itself.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, the Electoral College does act a bit like a blue shell to the winner of the popular vote.