'Proportional representation' and the nomination races so far

By MSS

It has been a while since I posted here, so I just want to catch a bit on the Democratic and Republican nomination races for Presidential candidates. Most news media sources do not provide running totals of the popular vote. As for delegate allocation, the close race on the Democratic side has forced them to at least acknowledge the different rules for delegate allocation in the two parties -- 'proportional representation' for Democrats and usually 'winner-take-all' for Republicans -- but, even so, there has been little context provided. Well, providing context about the impact of electoral rules is one of my specialties, so here we go...

The Republican Party quickly saw a consensus emerge among its primary voters (other than the disaffected Limbaugh/Ingraham types) in favor of John McCain, right? Wrong!

Through Super Tuesday, percentage of votes cast:

38.3 McCain
32.6 Romney
19.0 Huckabee
04.5 Paul

(The contests over the weekend would not change the picture much, as the turnouts were quite low in most of them.)

Those 'conservatives' who don't like McCain and are suddenly all nostalgic about the great Romney run should demand their party use proportional representation! If the Republican delegates were allocated proportionally, this race would be nowhere near over. Instead, most of them are allocated by various 'winner-take-all' rules, so even in a state like Missouri, which featured a close three-way race, John McCain could walk away with all the states' delegates. In California, the biggest Super Tuesday prize, McCain won only about 42% of the vote, yet he won most of the delegates. (They are allocated at the congressional district, and so Romney won a few.)

Speaking of "proportional representation" (PR) what about the Democrats? Percentages of the vote cast so far:

47.1 Obama
46.6 Clinton
03.4 Edwards

Yet if the news accounts are right that Clinton has a lead in delegates -- even elected ones -- then evidently the Democrats don't really use PR after all. Their process has reversed the plurality! So, while there has been much speculation about the possibility -- perhaps we should now say likelihood -- that the unelected 'Super-Delegates' could determine the outcome, it has been less noticed that it is not clear that the candidate with the most actual votes would be the nominee even if the Super Delegates did not exist.

If you are interested in those Super-smart people, er, I meant to say Super-Delegates, that may ultimately be entrusted with the power to determine the Democratic Party's nominee, there is an informative wiki site with good information about this aspect of the process.

Other excellent resources are the NYT list of delegates allocated (but they do not appear to separate elected delegates from ex-oficio Super Delegates) and Professor Michael McDonald's page of primary turnout rates by state and party.

Data note: For SC and the GOP in NH, I referenced the state election authority website. For NH Dems and all Super Tuesday contests, the AP results posted at the Los Angeles Times. (The Dem vote totals are Super Tuesday plus NH and SC. No delegates were awarded -- so far, anyway -- from Mich and Fla, and no actual human beings casting votes are recorded in Iowa or Nevada.)

The above is an adaptation of a post that I put up Sunday at the temporary home of Fruits & Votes while we work out a few bugs in the main site.

Update: CNN reports that once the Super Delegates are removed from the count, Obama may now be ahead (roughly 923-876), after the most recent contests. (Shame on the parties -- especially the Democrats -- for not making delegate allocation more transparent!)

NH allocation rules

By MSS

Most of the world's democratic countries elect their legislators by some form of proportional representation (PR). While Americans tend to think of proportional representation--if they think of it at all--as some sort of "foreign" idea, all Democratic voters and some states' Republican voters will be voting in "proportional" elections for delegates to their party's nominating conventions.

New Hampshire Democrats today will be selecting 14 district delegates and 5 statewide delegates. Each of the state's two US congressional districts elects seven delegates, via "proportional representation" to candidates winning at least 15% of the district's votes. The five statewide delegates are also allocated via "PR" among those candidates that win at least 15% in the state. (Quotation marks because the high threshold means it is hardly proportional, unless we understand "proportional" to mean "not block plurality.")

As with several list-PR systems around the world, there is a gender quota. In district 1, there must be four men and three women, while the gender balance is the reverse in district 2.

Most states have similar rules to New Hampshire's on the Democratic side.

If there was any information on the allocation rules for today's NH Republican presidential primary on the party's website, I failed to locate it. I believe it uses some form of "proportional" representation in a more limited sense, though most states that will be having upcoming GOP primaries use winner-take-all rules. Due to the winner-take-all primaries coming up, the Republican party could find itself with a large lead in delegates for a candidate with well under majority support. The Democrats' allocation system makes such a non-consensus result far less likely, no matter what happens the rest of the way.

Update: Fortunately, someone e-mailed me something from CQ that shows that the Republicans "proportionally" allocate 3 delegates in each congressional district, plus award three bonus delegates to the statewide plurality winner. So, in the GOP, there will be a substantial bonus to the leading candidate. (NH has its normal delegate total cut in half because it violated RNC rules by holding the primary so early.)