Tuesday, February 02, 2016 8:04:25 PM
Was the Iowa Caucus Decided by Coin Flips?
In a historically close election, a handful of delegates were determined by games of chance.
February 2, 2016
The Democratic caucuses in Iowa on Monday were so close that more than a dozen delegates were awarded based on coin flips.
How many is not exactly clear—the state party doesn’t track all the games of chance that occur as part of the complex process for divvying up delegates at hundreds of caucus sites across the state. But despite initial reports that Hillary Clinton had improbably run the table, it appears that Bernie Sanders won a sizable share of coin tosses as well, according to information provided on Tuesday by the state Democratic Party.
Delegates to the Democratic National Convention are the main prize of any caucus or primary, and the percentage of the vote in each of 1,681 Iowa precincts is used to determine how many delegates each candidate earns. Yet because these percentages are often messy, the Democratic rules call for precinct chairmen to use games of chance—coin flips—when the delegates can’t be determined simply by rounding up or down. (A photo of the relevant section was tweeted [
Games of chance have been included in the Democratic caucus rules “forever,” said Norm Sterzenbach, a former executive director of the state party who oversaw the nominating contests in 2008 and 2012. “It happens, but it’s not frequent,” he said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon. They usually occur when calculations for electing delegates to the county convention result in an extra delegate that can’t be assigned to one candidate by rounding. The county delegates are distinct from the “state delegation equivalents,” which is what the party uses to determine how many delegates each candidates secures for the national convention in Philadelphia. Clinton finished with 700.59 state delegate equivalents to 696.82 for Sanders, yet because county delegates are worth a “tiny fraction” of the state delegates, Sterzenbach said he could say “with absolute certainty” that the coin flips did not determine the outcome in Iowa.
[...]
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-coin-flips-iowa-caucus/459429/ [emphasis added; with comments]
In a historically close election, a handful of delegates were determined by games of chance.
February 2, 2016
The Democratic caucuses in Iowa on Monday were so close that more than a dozen delegates were awarded based on coin flips.
How many is not exactly clear—the state party doesn’t track all the games of chance that occur as part of the complex process for divvying up delegates at hundreds of caucus sites across the state. But despite initial reports that Hillary Clinton had improbably run the table, it appears that Bernie Sanders won a sizable share of coin tosses as well, according to information provided on Tuesday by the state Democratic Party.
Delegates to the Democratic National Convention are the main prize of any caucus or primary, and the percentage of the vote in each of 1,681 Iowa precincts is used to determine how many delegates each candidate earns. Yet because these percentages are often messy, the Democratic rules call for precinct chairmen to use games of chance—coin flips—when the delegates can’t be determined simply by rounding up or down. (A photo of the relevant section was tweeted [
] by Univision’s Fernando Peinado.)The coin toss rule is on the #IowaCaucus guide for Democratic precinct chairs pic.twitter.com/KQXRXaiLrx
— Fernando Peinado (@FernandoPeinado) February 2, 2016
Games of chance have been included in the Democratic caucus rules “forever,” said Norm Sterzenbach, a former executive director of the state party who oversaw the nominating contests in 2008 and 2012. “It happens, but it’s not frequent,” he said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon. They usually occur when calculations for electing delegates to the county convention result in an extra delegate that can’t be assigned to one candidate by rounding. The county delegates are distinct from the “state delegation equivalents,” which is what the party uses to determine how many delegates each candidates secures for the national convention in Philadelphia. Clinton finished with 700.59 state delegate equivalents to 696.82 for Sanders, yet because county delegates are worth a “tiny fraction” of the state delegates, Sterzenbach said he could say “with absolute certainty” that the coin flips did not determine the outcome in Iowa.
[...]
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-coin-flips-iowa-caucus/459429/ [emphasis added; with comments]
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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