Posted by Jed Lewison on Thu May 29, 2008 at 2:55 PM Pacific

Clinton's "popular vote" argument screws over Michigan

So Hillary Clinton's argument to superdelegates is that if you add up every contest, she's received (or will receive) more votes than Barack Obama. (Her claim is only true when you count certain votes and not others.)

She also says that if we don't count every vote cast in Michigan, we'll certainly lose the state in November.

But here's the problem:

• Michigan has cast 1.6% of all votes in the 2008 Democratic primaries (as defined by The Green Papers)
• If it were seated at full strength, Michigan would have 3.6% of all pledged delegates
• If it were seated at half strength (most likely), Michigan would have 1.9% of all pledged delegates

In other words, as long Michigan ends up being seated at half-strength or better, it will have more influence under a pledged delegate standard than under a popular vote standard.

So no matter how you count the votes, Michigan is better off under a pledged delegate standard than a popular vote standard.

Luckily for the Democratic Party, we use pledged delegates to make sure that every state has a fair shot at being heard, so Hillary Clinton's risky gambit to diminish Michigan's influence on the nomination process (sic) will fail, sparing us the inevitable electoral repercussions in November.

(Although all the numbers in this post are accurate, if you detected a bit of snark in my tone -- well, your snark detector is working just fine.)

Update: Here's some more ways the popular vote argument screws Michigan.

Clinton's "popular vote" argument screws over Michigan

So Hillary Clinton's argument to superdelegates is that if you add up every contest, she's received (or will receive) more votes than Barack Obama. (Her claim is only true when you count certain votes and not others.)

She also says that if we don't count every vote cast in Michigan, we'll certainly lose the state in November.

But here's the problem:

• Michigan has cast 1.6% of all votes in the 2008 Democratic primaries (as defined by The Green Papers)
• If it were seated at full strength, Michigan would have 3.6% of all pledged delegates
• If it were seated at half strength (most likely), Michigan would have 1.9% of all pledged delegates

In other words, as long Michigan ends up being seated at half-strength or better, it will have more influence under a pledged delegate standard than under a popular vote standard.

So no matter how you count the votes, Michigan is better off under a pledged delegate standard than a popular vote standard.

Luckily for the Democratic Party, we use pledged delegates to make sure that every state has a fair shot at being heard, so Hillary Clinton's risky gambit to diminish Michigan's influence on the nomination process (sic) will fail, sparing us the inevitable electoral repercussions in November.

(Although all the numbers in this post are accurate, if you detected a bit of snark in my tone -- well, your snark detector is working just fine.)

Update: Here's some more ways the popular vote argument screws Michigan.