Talk:Results of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries/Archive 9

This is an archive of past discussions about Results of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 7

Clinton's delegate totals vandalized

To Administrator: Someone needs to change Hillary Clinton's delegate totals. They are entirely innaccurate.Some hacker changed them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.41.150.245 (talk • contribs) 18:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Fixed Thanks for raising the issue. Next time, place your comment at the bottom of this page. Otherwise, it might be missed. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 03:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Total Popular Vote chart missing as of date

I think an as of primaries & cacuses that took place on ___ line would be extremely helpful. --Joncnunn (talk) 13:22, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Amount of pledged delegates

The amount of pledged delegates seems updated at the source referenced: [1], so I think this should be updated in the article. Van der Hoorn (talk) 16:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

List only POPULAR EVENTS in the main table

I think the main table should list only popular events and not conventions or assemblies of elected. I report here an answer to a longer discussion on my Talk page:

....I think the result page have to include only POPULAR EVENTS, not conventions, assemblies and other. Mixing popular events (primaries and caucuses) with conventions of elected (state) delegates have no sense. I continue not understanding the problem to put 78 (insted of 0 as total delegates) on Washington caucuses (with specific, and already existent and used notes), as done for Iowa, Kansas,ecc.ecc., and as done by all principal media networks (there's no reason to believe them dumber than "green papers"). As compromise, I would accept adding a separate section, with the conventions, and very very official results, but I think it's difficult to do so. I think we should return to the public talk page.

To read more you can see the previous section and my Talk page. In practice, regarding Texas only primary and caucuses should remain listed and the same for Washington (even if primary with 0 delegates, but it's popular event). I think some other opinions have to be collected. --Subver (talk) 21:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Zero delegates to be awarded with estimated delegates won

Here's the relevant text from a discussion between Subver and myself that occurred on his talk page. I'm placing the text here because it deals with this article's content and should probably more properly have been discussed here.

Begin text from User talk:Subver

[snip irrelevant personal chat] [Subver,] the issue I'm talking about is...the one involving rows that list 0 delegates to be awarded while at the same time listing estimated delegates won. For example, the following row for the Washington precinct caucuses:

Candidates		Uncommitted	Hillary Clinton	Barack Obama
February 9
	Washington precinct caucuses Delegates: 0 (of 78)^[A]^[B]	1%	26 31%	52 68%

First off, let me say that I don't much like seeing "Delegates:0 (of 78)" next to "52-26" myself, even if I do think it's technically correct. It's just too confusing and seems like a contradiction. Many editors have expressed confusion and tried to "fix" it. Where you and I disagree (so far) is over your proposed solution of simply deleting rows like this. What I'd like to do here is see if you and I can figure out a different solution to the "Delegates:0 with 52-26" problem. For example, what if we put square brackets around the "52-26" numbers so it was clear they're estimates? Or what if we displayed the "Delegates:" numbers as "Estimated delegates:78" and "Actual delegates:0"? [snip irrelevant personal chat] --Bryan H Bell (talk) 08:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[snip irrelevant personal chat] IMHO the best thing to do is put 78 as delegate number indicating vaguely "caucuses", and adding notes [a] and [b], indicating that those numbers are only estimates of the final result(even if most of them universally admitted), reached through multiple steps (in some cases merely formal, in my opinion). And I'm for avoiding putting state conventions (maybe an exception for Dem Abroad), because either all or none. And putting "state conventions" in the list is misleading. Primary/caucuses are popular events and the votes are not predetermined. State conventions are assemblies of elected people. Moreover now Kansas, Iowa and others are treated differently from Washington,Texas.--Subver (talk) 20:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[snip irrelevant personal chat] Ok, let's say we simply list the total delegate numbers as you suggest. That would end the confusion of showing "Delegates:0 (of 78)" next to "52-26". But what will happen in the future if the delegate mix changes in successive events? Let me suggest a situation that could occur in the future. Suppose today is June 16, 2008. Obama has seen a wave of increased support in other states and at Washington's Congressional District caucuses, the uncommitted delegates decide to choose Obama delegates to send to the State Convention. Because of this, the split among the 51 Congressional District delegates attending the State Convention is now 35 for Obama and 16 for Clinton. At the State Convention, these delegates vote for the 27 pledged At-Large and pledged PLEO delegates, but one wavering Clinton delegate decides to vote for an Obama delegate to serve as one of the pledged PLEO delegates. This results in 20 At-Large/PLEO delegates for Obama and 7 for Clinton. So, altogether, Washington ends up sending 55 delegates for Obama and 23 for Clinton. Here's what such a situation might look like in the results table:

Candidates		Uncommitted	Hillary Clinton	Barack Obama
February 9	Washington precinct caucuses Delegates: 78^[A]^[B]	1%	26 31%	52 68%
May 17	Washington congressional district caucuses Delegates: 78^[A]^[B]	0%	24 31%	54 69%
June 15	Washington state convention Delegates: 78^[B]	0%	23 29%	55 71%

Now, won't it be confusing to see three rows with 78 delegates each? It makes it look like Washington is sending 234 delegates to the National Convention. But I'd hate to delete those other rows and leave out so much information about how the nomination progressed in Washington. Besides, which date would you put in the date column for the row that's left? What if we did the following instead?

Candidates		Uncommitted	Hillary Clinton	Barack Obama
February 9	Washington precinct caucuses Delegates: 0 (of 78)^[A]^[B]	1%	[ 26 ] 31%	[ 52 ] 68%
May 17	Washington congressional district caucuses Delegates: 51 (of 78)^[B]	0%	16 31%	35 69%
June 15	Washington state convention Delegates: 27 (of 78)^[B]	0%	7 29%	20 71%

We could add a note above the table explaining why some numbers have square brackets around them. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 02:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's another way we could do it, though it looks rather busy:

Candidates		Uncommitted	Hillary Clinton	Barack Obama
February 9	Washington precinct caucuses Total delegates: 78 Delegates awarded: 0^[A]^[B]	1%	[ 26 ] 31%	[ 52 ] 68%
May 17	Washington congressional district caucuses Total delegates: 78 Delegates awarded: 51^[B]	0%	16 31%	35 69%
June 15	Washington state convention Total delegates: 78 Delegates awarded: 27^[B]	0%	7 29%	20 71%

--Bryan H Bell (talk) 02:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but we continue thinking very differently on the issue. I think the result page have to include only POPULAR EVENTS, not conventions, assemblies and other. Mixing popular events (primaries and caucuses) with conventions of elected (state) delegates have no sense. I continue not understanding the problem to put 78 on Washington caucuses (with specific, and already existent and used notes), as done for Iowa, Kansas,ecc.ecc., and as done by all principal media networks (there's no reason to believe them dumber than "green papers"). As compromise, I would accept adding a separate section, with the conventions, and very very official results, but I think it's difficult to do so. I think we should return to the public talk page.--Subver (talk) 21:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

End text from User talk:Subver --Bryan H Bell (talk) 22:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I like the last suggestion, but I agree it's too busy. Why not just do the following for all states?

Candidates		Uncommitted	Hillary Clinton	Barack Obama
February 9	Washington - 78 precinct caucuses Delegates Awarded: 0^[A]^[B]	1%	0 31%	0 68%
May 17	Washington - 78 congressional district caucuses Delegates Awarded: 51^[A]^[B]	0%	16 31%	35 69%
June 15	Washington - 78 state convention Delegates Awarded: 27^[B]	0%	7 29%	20 71%

Gelbza (talk) 12:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Throwing my two cents in. In the later stages of the cacuses, we can put events into three possible categories

1. All but one major candidate was withdrawn by it. In this case, I think listing such events would be unneeded, it's just going to run up the score for the person who has already run and so it may be best to totally ignore it.
2. The race is still being contested but there was no change in the projected national estimate from the previous round. In this case, perhaps it should be noted just by adding to the footnote of the original line that in the following stages there were no changes.
3. The race is still being contested and there is a change in the projected national estimate from the previous round. This is the case that we need to be concerned with. In this case, I propse that we would in fact need a new line for this event with the new estimates. While to make it clear the previous estimate was invalid, and the strikethru font across the projected delegates for the previous line.

Jon (talk) 13:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove Gravel?

I think the charts will look cleaner if we removed Mike Gravel. His campaign is over and he is now endorsing the Green Party candidate: http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/03/11/mike-gravel-endorses-jesse-johnson-green-party-for-president/ Dfuss (talk) 19:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe the criteria we've been using for including candidates on this article's results table has been whether or not the candidate was running a national campaign, regardless of whether or not they'd withdrawn. However, if it is true that Gravel has formally withdrawn or suspended his campaign, then we might want to move his column to the right of Obama and mark the appropriate cells in his column with pink. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 02:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Kallahan has added a pink cell in the Gravel column with some footnote references. I've read these and the above, but I'm not sure it's certain that Gravel has formally withdrawn yet. I do understand, however, how one could consider Gravel's recent actions to amount to a de facto withdrawal. Perhaps we could find a way to indicate Gravel's questionable current campaign status without actually indicating him as withdrawn until we see a formal announcement. Rather than leave the article's table in a half-completed state in this regard, I've removed Kallahan's changes until we figure out another way to deal with this. Here are the two references Kallahan gave in the article: [2] [3]. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 07:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I am for moving Gravel among "withdrawn" as told in the general primaries page. Another issue... how the candidates are ordered? I think it have been decided in the discussion, but I don't know where (it should be nice write it on the page). If you agree in change (it requires some work, due to the column switching) propose the same I have proposed on the Primary page: ordering by pledged delegates and then (if equal) alphabetically. --Subver (talk) 17:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I would first like to say that it is not our place to make guesses as to if Mike Gravel has withdrawn, he never ended his campaign, so we will leave him on the chart. To answer your other question, candidates are ordered alphabetically; the ones that withdrew or ordered chronologically by when they withdrew. – Zntrip 18:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Just so I understand, one can endorse someone else for President, and such an endorsement would not be considered a de facto withdrawal? Isn't that like applying for a job, meeting another applicant, and then telling the employer instead of hiring you, that they should hire the other guy? That denotes neither a serious job applicant nor a serious candidate and implies that the individual is on longer in the running for the position. --Kallahan (talk) 18:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree it makes no sense, but either way Mike Gravel’s campaign is still up and running. – Zntrip 19:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sources (for "up and running")? In my opinion Gravel, with Jesse Johnson endorsement, will be shortly out of Democratic Party.--Subver (talk) 19:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

My source is Mike Gravel’s campaign Web site. He endorsed Jesse Johnson on the 11th and the latest news item on the campaign Web site is from the 13th. Gravel may vary likely pull out, but he hasn’t yet. – Zntrip 19:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Gravel has run, if nothing else, an unorthodox campaign. A close reading of the press release cited above, particularly its last two paragraphs, suggests to me that Gravel intends to move forward with a co-operative cross-party set of campaigns. He probably knows that neither he nor Johnson have any chance of being nominated, but his purpose is likely more about using the twin campaigns to raise awareness within the Democratic Party than to actually win. He may be aiming to influence the Party's platform. A similar tactic may have been the purpose of Huckabee's continued campaign after it was already clear he could not win the Republican Party's nomination. I don't think its necessary to recatgegorize Gravel's campaign as withdrawn just because it doesn't fit neatly with our notions of how an active campaign should be run. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 21:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

A cooperative campaign for a position filled by one person is not a serious campaign, let alone credible as an "unorthodox" one; campaigning in a clown suit is unorthodox, whereas campaigning for someone else is a withdrawal. Gravel is no Huckabee, but rather less credible than an Alan Keyes candidacy, and should be treated with about as much credibility. --Kallahan (talk) 22:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You are perhaps correct about the credibility of Gravel's campaign. I must confess I don't know much more about his campaign than I've read in the articles cited here. However, as far as this or other Wikipedia articles are concerned, I don't think it much matters how credible any of us judge Gravel's campaign to be. He is running a notable, national campaign and has, as far as we're aware, made no formal announcement that he is withdrawing his bid for nomination. Sticking to the facts of the matter, I think the best we can do is note that he has endorsed another candidate. Reading more into it than that (one way or the other) might be failing to uphold WP:NPOV. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 06:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand the hesitance under the NPOV framework to say that he's formally withdrawn, but it seems that the table can be reorganized to reflect the realities produced by a candidate's endorsement of someone else without violating NPOV. -- Kallahan (talk) 14:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Why not simply reorder the columns from highest to lowest total delegates - this is what the 2008 Democratic Primary article did. We leave Gravel in, and don't have to indicate that has withdrawn. This is an article about the results, and it makes sense that the contenders are listed by their results - making the chart more useful and less confusing to readers. Dfuss (talk) 16:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Map: Results of the Democratic Presidential Primaries 2008

Change: Obama as the winner of Texas.

Use it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.169.172.57 (talk) 19:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Obama was not the winner of Texas "based on vote percentage." When you add the popular vote + caucus vote, Clinton still comes out ahead. Northwesterner1 (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I don´t think so. (Primary: Hillary Clinton (51 %) 65 delegates - Barack Obama (47 %) 61 delegates / Caucus: Hillary Clinton (43 %) 29 delegates - Barack Obama (56 %) 38 delegates) 84.169.172.57 (talk) 22:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand "based on vote percentage" to mean based on the number of popular votes cast in the primary election + the number of caucus attendees. Caucus attendance has not been released in Texas, but all estimates I have seen suggest that Clinton wins the combined popular vote of the primary and the caucus. If this map is "based on the delegate count," then you would need to adjust the map to show that Obama won a higher percentage of delegates in Nevada, and that they tied in New Hampshire and Missouri. (You would also need to change the title to be clear.) Regardless, what's the point? This article already has a map of the delegate vote (which shows Obama winning Texas). Northwesterner1 (talk) 23:14, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this image should be embedded in the page as it used to be, the new images are fine, but this one is very well represented and well created, after all on the Republican article the map based on vote percentage still shows, why someone deleted it from this article? Regards --JoeJoe11 (talk) 00:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Northwesterner here. Because the map in question portrays the candidates with the highest percentage of popular votes (not percentage of delegate votes as does the one above), Texas should be listed as a win for Clinton. I disagree with JoeJoe11 that we should use the above "percentage of delegate votes" map. Such a map doesn't belong in the Popular vote section because that's not what it portrays. Neither does such a map belong elsewhere on the Democratic primaries articles. While the map is appropriate in the Republican primaries articles, it's "either/or" method implies that states are "winner-take-all" in delegate votes, which is not true for the Democratic primaries. The "margins" method used by Image:2008 Democratic Primaries Delegate Vote.png already in place in the Graphical representations section is more approrpriate. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 02:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

In TX, all cacus attenders had to affirm they had voted in the Democratic primary, so any adding together of primary votes & cacus attenders would double count substantaly all cacus attenders. Jon (talk) 17:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Less well known (because probably not as used) is that counting of the WA primary aprox a week after the first round of the the WA cacuses would also result in double counting, but in this case an unknown amount due to the order of the events. The WA primary amounted to only a straw poll since all the delegates are going to be based on the cacus. Jon (talk) 17:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Michigan delegates

You have 128 unseated delegates for Michigan. Am I incorrect in stating that Michigan has 156 delegates? In addition, I believe you have the incorrect amount on several states including Florida. Is there a place we could check these? It could be especially important no that Michigan is planning to add the Dem election on June 3rd. Cyberclops (talk) 19:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

128 pledged delegates + 28 superdelegates (counted apart in this article). It is correct. You can verify the numbers by the official sources, see the general Primaries page (DNC Democratic Call document page 33, and for FL/MI:Delegate Plans, all this documents are well footnoted). --Subver (talk) 20:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I can see how it would be easy to think that the delegate numbers listed might include superdelegates. To clarify this, I've changed to table rows to say "Pledged delegates:" instead of just "Delegates:". I've also changed the labels of the top total rows to more clearly indicate that they are totals. Let's see if that helps. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 01:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Delegate scorecard

I've removed Image:Delegate Scorecard.png from this article for a variety of reasons, the most significant of which is that I think the graphic may contain copyright violations in its pictures of the candidates and "CNNPolitics.com" logo. Other concerns I have are that the graphic duplicates information already available in other graphics on the article, that it contains data and maps that imply states are "winner-take-all" in delegate votes, that those "winner-take-all" data and maps may violate WP:NPOV, and finally that the graphic appears to me to contain unnecessary stylistic flourishes (not encyclopedic). --Bryan H Bell (talk) 07:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Another problem with the graphic: It gives a "delegate" count and a "superdelegate" count, but for the "delegate" count it uses numbers that already include superdelegates. Northwesterner1 (talk) 08:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Resolution 1024x768 issue

I suggest to everybody to keep in mind that many many users have 1024x768, and I think we have to do compromises between them and who use higher resolutions. --Subver (talk) 13:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Nice job formatting the table, Subver. It looks good. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 20:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Yes, good fix. Northwesterner1 (talk) 21:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Vote to overturn previous consensus on rows

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the vote to overturn a previous consensus. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the vote was to uphold the previous consensus that each row in the Overview of results table should summarize nomination events, not aggregate state results. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 00:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There have been several inconclusive discussions on this talk page over the past week regarding whether each row in the Overview of results table should represent either an individual nominating event or a summary of all nominating events for a given state. The Overview of results table is currently in a state of flux, with some states (Washington, Texas, and Democrats Abroad) displayed using the event-based strategy while most other states (for example Iowa and Nevada) are displayed using the summary-based strategy. In this section, I hope to avoid further discussion (which has been exhaustive until now) and instead simply make a decision so that we can move forward and repair the inconsistency (one way or the other) in the Overview of results table.

History: In mid-February, consensus had been reached that each row in the Overview of results table should represent a single nominating event. Work on gradually adding nominating events to the table was underway when on March 8 some of the event-based rows were removed and discussion on the issue re-opened. The tide of opinion during this and subsequent discussions seemed to be turning against the previous consensus. As a result, work on adding events to the table stopped. A few attempts were made to resolve the discussion, but perhaps because the attempts either didn't address the issue directly enough or didn't explicity request consensus, results were inconclusive.

Process: Below are subsections that contain summaries of the major arguments for each position. Please add comments to these subsections only if you feel that they contain inaccuracies or are missing important points. Please do not otherwise comment or express your support or opposition in these subsections. Instead, below the summary subsections you will find additional subsections where you can add your signature (no other comments, please) to express your support for either overturning or upholding the previous consensus. The position with the most signatures by the end of March 19, 2008 (UTC) will prevail and work on repairing the inconsistency in the Overview of results table will begin. If there is a tie or there are fewer than 4 total signatures (the number of supporters in the previous consensus) the consensus established in mid-February will be upheld by default. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Arguments for using event-based rows

This position is the previously-established consensus.

Shows how voters' changing preferences within each state fits into larger national picture.
Shows accurate (actually bound) number of delegates for each candidate at any moment in time.
Summary of state results already available on main article.
Avoids misconception that state race occurs on single date for those states that have multi-step caucuses.
Avoids difficulty in determining which date to display for states that have events on multiple dates (use first event date or last event date?).
Provides historical overview of nomination process after nomination process is complete.
Avoid appearance of inconsistency between majority of states and those (Texas, Democrats Abroad, Washington) with unique selection processes.
Provides greater distinctiveness between this article's contents and the contents of the main article.
Provides necessary level of detail in an extremely close nomination contest.
Manages all potential corner cases that may arise in nomination process.
Places equal emphasis on all events rather than emphasizing primaries and precinct caucuses over later events.
Provides alternative to most media portrayals of results while still avoiding WP:OR.

Event-based row example for a single state:

Candidates		Uncommitted^[1]	Hillary Clinton	Mike Gravel	Barack Obama	John Edwards	Dennis Kucinich	Bill Richardson	Joe Biden	Chris Dodd

February 9	Washington precinct caucuses Pledged delegates: 0 (of 78)^[A]^[B]	1%	[ 26 ] 31%	–	[ 52 ] 68%	–	–	–	–	–
May 17	Washington congressional district caucuses Pledged delegates: 51 (of 78)^[B]	0%	16 31%	–	35 69%	–	–	–	–	–
June 15	Washington state convention Pledged delegates: 27 (of 78)^[B]	0%	7 29%	–	20 71%	–	–	–	–	–

--Bryan H Bell (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Arguments for using summary-based rows (aka popular-event-based)

This position challenges the previously-established consensus and has seen recent support.

Requires fewer rows for states with multi-step caucuses and thus a shorter table with simpler layout.
Details about individual events are already available in each state's primary or caucus Wikipedia article.
Retains some information about nomination process (date column) while still providing an overview of each state.
Avoids appearance of inconsistency in how total delegates are displayed for each state.
Eliminates details that will be irrelevant to the article after the nomination process is complete.
Avoids appearance of inconsistency in displaying state convention events for one state (in which delegates are bound) and not for another state (in which all delegates were bound in earlier events).
Avoids difficulty in determining how to display estimated results (should each event display estimates? if only one, which one?)
Avoids confusion for random readers who show up at this article looking for basic information and instead see intricate details.
Avoids excessive detail in displaying voters' changing preferences within each state when these preferences haven't changed substantially in past presidential nomination races.
Avoids giving disproportionate article space to states with multi-step caucuses over states with single-step primaries.
Places greater emphasis on events which involve popular votes (primaries, first caucus events) and less emphasis on events which involve elected delegate votes (district caucues, state conventions).
Consistent with portrayal of results used by most media outlets.

Summary-based row example for a single state:

Candidates		Uncommitted^[2]	Hillary Clinton	Mike Gravel	Barack Obama	John Edwards	Dennis Kucinich	Bill Richardson	Joe Biden	Chris Dodd

February 9	Washington Pledged delegates: 78^[A]^[B]	1%	26 31%	–	52 68%	–	–	–	–	–

--Bryan H Bell (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Support for resuming event-based rows

Add your signature below (no other comments please) if you support upholding the previous consensus for event-based rows.

Support for changing to summary-based rows

Add your signature below (no other comments please) if you support overturning the previous consensus for event-based rows.

Subver (talk) 14:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
jamgar 22.34 17 March 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 22:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Zntrip 01:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments and questions

Add any comments or questions concerning this discussion below.

Currently what is the consensus on multi-event states? I see that we have six for Washington listed, but there is only one for Maine, even though it has other contests. Also, how are the delegates displayed for caucuses followed by other caucuses or a state convention? I see for Iowa we struck out the initial estimated results with new estimated results based on the later caucus. If this is going to be the precedent, I foresee much confusion. Furthermore, after the Democratic National Convention some delegate numbers may change. At the moment I am leaning to doing away with this system and having a simple score chart, although we would have to remove the candidates with no delegates as well as percentages. – Zntrip 04:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

This vote is to resolve that consensus. See above for the history. The previous consensus was to list all events in multi-event states; however, the consensus fell apart before all events could be added. Hence, the discrepancy between Washington and Maine. Once we resolve this point, we'll have to do more work in figuring out how to make the results clear to the reader. Northwesterner1 (talk) 04:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

One comment, the second stage in the Iowa cacuses have already returned a different national delegation split than the earlier reported first stage and so we already have an example of shifting projected national delegations from multi-event states. Jon (talk) 13:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support "summary" based, which I think it's not a summary but it is the ONLY popular event.It is much less confusing and misleading using only popular events and not conventions/assemblies of elected people, and not a MIX among popular events and conventions. It permit to do comparatives among states, details of conventions are kept on the specific page. I suggest rename Date to "first Date" or "popular event date" or similar.--Subver (talk) 15:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

To this point, I don't think percentages should be included unless they reflect a popular vote. In cases where just delegate totals are released, having the percentages makes the table more confusing. ~ Paul^T+/_C 21:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

That is, the above example should be changed to this:

Candidates		Uncommitted^[3]	Hillary Clinton	Mike Gravel	Barack Obama	John Edwards	Dennis Kucinich	Bill Richardson	Joe Biden	Chris Dodd

February 9	Washington precinct caucuses Pledged delegates: 0 (of 78)^[A]^[B]	1%	[ 26 ] 31%	–	[ 52 ] 68%	–	–	–	–	–
May 17	Washington congressional district caucuses Pledged delegates: 51 (of 78)^[B]	–	16	–	35	–	–	–	–	–
June 15	Washington state convention Pledged delegates: 27 (of 78)^[B]	–	7	–	20	–	–	–	–	–

~ Paul^T+/_C 21:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Support Paul's fix. Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree as well, though my preference would be to work out the details of whichever option we select after the vote has concluded. I'd like to ensure that discussion here doesn't cause this vote to stray from the core issue we're trying to decide because it's been so difficult bringing this issue to a conclusion. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 22:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I would thank Bryan for the clear explanations of the two possibilities (but be more synthetic! :-) ). --Subver (talk) 17:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to all, on both sides of the issue, who participated in this vote and the earlier discussion. --Bryan H Bell (talk) 00:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the vote to overturn a previous consensus. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Superdelegate tally

I see you use DenConWatch to summarize the endorsement status of unpledged PLEO. You might be interested to know that we follow the status of superdelegates on this page: Democratic Party (United States) unpledged delegates, 2008. --Bouchecl (talk) 14:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've looked it over, athough I think it would be better if that page used DenConWatch rather than this one changing to use that. I'm seeing several lines from an obvious campaign site (Hillary Clinton's) on that page and that source fails the reliable source test. Jon (talk) 18:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

now (march 18, 10:23 cet) the superdelegate numbers are completely wrong. the footnote says that the data are from DemConWatch, but that is not right. it seems to be an estimation that simply extrapolates superdelegate numbers from today. michael--62.47.196.173 (talk) 09:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Someone has been swooping in and changing those numbers, to the point that they will probably be reported for vandalism the next time around. I've reverted back to the proper version. Luckily there seems to be enough people watching the page to catch this kind of thing in a fairly timely manner.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 09:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)