who do you THINK will win the Democratic nomination?

[Verily]

As far as I know, only Louisiana holds run-off elections for general elections. A handful of Southern states hold runoffs for primaries or special elections.

[StateBoiler]

As far as I know, only Louisiana holds run-off elections for general elections. A handful of Southern states hold runoffs for primaries or special elections.

Again shows why the South are #1 when it comes to how to run elections.

The rest of the country needs to catch up and realize how to run things. It's why everyone's moving here apparently.

(I think runners-up in North Carolina are entitled to runoffs if the winner has less than 40% in a primary.)

Regardless, I think 50% plus one, can't have anything less if you want 100% delegates.

[Keystone Phil]

First off, we are not determining who wins a seat. We are determining delegates to a convention, and that convention decide who wins.

LOL

So the convention is the model of a democratic system? Good one. Now I understand.

I don't need the system explained to me. I understand how it works. It was a fundamental disagreement as to which is more democratic.

[YRABNNRM]

As much as I would like to say that Obama has it locked up, I still have a feeling that somehow Hillary will pull it out. I don't know how but that's the feeling I get, probably just my pessimism.

[StateBoiler]

First off, we are not determining who wins a seat. We are determining delegates to a convention, and that convention decide who wins.

LOL

So the convention is the model of a democratic system? Good one. Now I understand.

I don't need the system explained to me. I understand how it works. It was a fundamental disagreement as to which is more democratic.

So what do you want, a national primary? That's the only more democratic way than what we have.

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

The Democratic system results in no true wasted votes.

How do you define "wasted votes"?

Votes cast for a candidate that do not result in them earning any delegates.

I suppose there are a few, for example, any Hillary supporters in western Idaho wasted their votes. But nowhere near the GOP level.

[Mr. Morden]

The Democratic system results in no true wasted votes.

How do you define "wasted votes"?

Votes cast for a candidate that do not result in them earning any delegates.

I suppose there are a few, for example, any Hillary supporters in western Idaho wasted their votes. But nowhere near the GOP level.

Still not sure I follow this logic.  Allow me to elaborate on my confusion:

Compare two different voters.  One votes in the Dem. primary in a CD with 4 delegates, where everyone knows that neither candidate is going to get the 62.5% of the vote needed to split the delegates 3-1.  It's clear that the split is going to be 2-2.  The other voter is voting in the GOP primary in a WTA state where the polls show that it's incredibly close.  Now, if the candidate selected by the GOP voter comes up short and doesn't win that state, his vote is "wasted", whereas the votes of all of the voters in the Dem. primary in that 4 delegate CD "counted"?  That seems like a strange way of looking at things.

I mean, if that one voter hadn't shown up at the polls, there still would have been a 2-2 split, so his vote didn't really change anything.  The vote only "counted" in the sense that if a large number of other people in the district had voted differently or not at all, the outcome would have been different.  But the exact same thing can be said in the WTA-by-state system.  If you want to call the votes for a candidate who didn't win a state "wasted", then you can equally say that all votes for any losing candidate in any election are "wasted".

I think that the more relevant question is "what is the probability that a given vote will change the outcome?"  To make the system "fair" you should ideally make it so that everyone's vote has an equal probability of changing the outcome.  This doesn't happen in any WTA system because some states are much closer than others.  (But the same is true in the Dem. system, because of how things are allocated by CD.)  But that's the way I'd look at it, rather than set up a dichotomy in which some votes are "wasted" and other aren't.

[Democratic Hawk]

I now seriously think that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee

Dave