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Massive Democratic Disenfranchisement


Turns out that's what happened in Michigan and Florida, but not the way it's represented by Hillary's campaign.
Based on a statistical comparison with turnout in other states’ primaries, it appears that roughly two million more people would have voted in Florida and Michigan had they expected their delegates to be seated.
Just seating Hillary's delegates in light of this wouldn't exactly be fair to these 2,000,000 Democrats. This also further undermines the shaky case for counting the popular vote in these two flawed Democratic primaries. Millions of Dems didn't vote because they knew it would be a waste of time.




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Apparently I didn't use the link function properly. Here's the source of the quote:

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/03/who_didnt_vote_in_the_florida.html

This is why I hate how the situation has turned out there. Anyone who says that it's cut and dry is either very taken by his or her candidate to the point of untrustworthiness, or ignorant on the facts. My own take is that ideally, there would be a revote of any kind, even a sloppy one that has a serious probability of fraud, if only to give a tiny amount of legitimacy on both sides (at least more than the current results have). That's unlikely at this point. Maybe the deadline for the primaries could be extended or something. Failing that, which it appears we have, the Michigan vote cannot count. Florida's another issue, and perhaps that one should be counted even if turnout was depressed. At least they have the marginal legitimacy of having every candidate on the ballot. Do, however, get rid of all of Florida's superdelegates and cut their pledged in half as punishment. 'Tis my humble take.

It's nice to see someone in the press point that out. I've been saying that for awhile. Honestly, if I knew it wasn't going to count, I probably wouldn't have gone out either.

I'm so pissed at those state's Democratic leaders - why they can't/couldn't get it together and have a damn revote I'll never understand. If I lived in Michigan or Florida, I would purposely vote those idiots out of office next time around.

I know more than a few individuals in Florida who did not turn out for Obama because they were told voting in the primary would not count. No large count by any means, just personal friends.

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lifelongdem

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