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The Sanders campaign hedged against such an error occurring and had their own internal app to track caucus numbers: https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/sanders-

The Sanders campaign hedged against such an error occurring and had their own internal app to track caucus numbers: https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/sanders-campaign-release-caucus-numbers-iowa-buttigieg/ https://theintercept.com/2020/02/04/sanders-campaign-release... No surprise, it shows Bernie Sanders winning solidly. This whole situation reeks of the DNC trying to stunt his momentum.

phkahler 7y ago
One would think the person with the most votes is their best hope. But apparently the leadership thinks they know better than data.
- wunderland 7y ago
  The DNC leadership is controlled by large donors who have billions of reasons to oppose a candidate like Sanders.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Having the most votes in the party caucuses is definitely not equivalent to having the best chance to win the election, where you have to appeal to a different set of voters.
  - tveita 7y ago
    The major deficiency of the two-party system is that the parties have to resort to this kind of second-guessing the "average voter" instead of just presenting all the options and letting the voters choose for themselves.
    - umanwizard 7y ago
      In most democracies that don’t suffer from the two-party system, there is as far as I’m aware nothing like the American primary/caucus system. The parties just decide who their candidates are with no input from anyone but dues-paying party members.
      - dmurray 7y ago
        The last UK leadership election for the Labour Party [0] had a turnout of 500k+, or roughly 1% of the population. I won't bore you with the details of whether it's correct to think of all 500k as "dues-paying members". That's a lot less than the 30 million or 10% of population [1] who voted in the last Democratic primaries in 2016, but not "nothing like" it. And we could pick other years the turnout was much lower, e.g. 7 million [2] in 2012 where Obama did not have meaningful opposition). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Labour_Party_leadership_election_(UK) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Labour_Party_leadership_e... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presiden... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_Party_presiden...
        tveita 7y ago
        UK is not a good counterexample here. It also uses the first-past the post voting system, which trends towards two parties since any third party becomes a spoiler. With a different voting system there would be a wider range of smaller parties, so you don't need to wrest control of a major party to be represented.
- cableshaft 7y ago
  It seems there are people in the Democratic establishment that would rather have 4 more years of Trump than elect a non-establishment Democrat they can't control. At least with Trump they can spend 4 years pointing to him and saying what a disaster he is to better position themselves for next election. Here's an Op-Ed piece that makes that argument: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/15/it-clear-establishment-and-corporate-media-would-prefer-trump-reelection-president https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/15/it-clear-estab... And I would even argue that it's not always best to go with the person who gets the most votes amongst the Democrats. Most Democrats and Republicans will vote for their party in the election, no matter who the nominee is. So I would think the best person to win the election would be a candidate that is able to get the most support from across the aisle, from Independents and Republicans. This election, it seems like the top candidates for that are Yang, Biden, or Tulsi, based on what few articles I can find on the matter. https://www.businessinsider.com/right-leaning-voters-support-andrew-yang-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/right-leaning-voters-support... https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/476265-poll-gop-voters-drawn-to-biden-more-than-other-2020-democrats https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/476265-poll-gop-voters-dra... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/tulsi-gabbards-support-skews-conservative-and-male.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/tulsi-gabbards-suppo... But it doesn't seem like the DNC cares about that as much as long as one of the establishment candidates wins the nomination (Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, Kloubuchar).
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
    Washington's warning rings true in this case. The really odd side-effect, though maybe not unpredictable, is the amount of people who voice approach along the lines of 'burn it all down, start from scratch'. Sentiment like that must be scary to the existing powers. That said, I have no idea how common that is. The weirdest thing about it is that Trump seems very much result of this trend. edit: changed verb is to seems
  - phkahler 7y ago
    >> Most Democrats and Republicans will vote for their party in the election, no matter who the nominee is. >> So I would think the best person to win the election would be a candidate that is able to get the most support from across the aisle, from Independents and Republicans. Well that means picking a candidate specifically for the swing votes, which may be very different than what party members want. In other words someone that almost nobody likes. But hey, they can win. Because people will vote their party regardless.
criley2 7y ago
I find it entertaining that the only groups calling "rigged" and sowing disinformation without any evidence is Donald Trump and his sons, and Bernie supporters. When folks say that Bernie is very Trump-like and his followers very similar to Trumps, they can use "rigged" Iowa caucuses as another great datapoint. Caucuses are notoriously messy and take time to tabulate and understand. No one including the national party likes them. The funniest thing about your lazy "rig" attack is that the national parties DO NOT RUN THESE PROCESSES! It's literally entirely state-run. So, according to Donald Trump and Bernie supporters, the Iowa state Democratic Party is rigging their own caucus by feigning incompetence purely of their own accord to help Washington insiders. The minority party of a tiny conservative state is self-rigging to help DC oligarchs, apparently. Ridiculous. EDIT: For the record, you are amplifying dangerous political disinformation that is being intentionally used to sow discord and division by the GOP https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1224672579023261707 https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1224672579023261707 EDIT2: If you truly want to see a "rigged" process, look at the GOP, who have CANCELLED dozens of primaries and declared Trump the nominee by act from on high. Literally just cancelled democracy. But sure, caucuses suck.
- nextstep 7y ago
  This is just not true. Biden’s campaign has complained about the way this caucus was run: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/481315-biden-campaign-calls-for-answers-from-iowa-dems-after-delays-in-caucus https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/481315-biden-campaign-... Bernie’s campaign, on the other hand, has multiple times rejected the notion that the process was rigged: https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-campaign-refutes-trump-claim-that-dnc-primary-election-is-rigged https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-campaign-refute...
  - criley2 7y ago
    I was responding to someone who literally said the caucuses were rigged by the DNC to hurt Bernie. Read the thread please! And for the record: Biden has never called this process rigged at all. Your link shows him rightfully criticizing the many failures including the technology failures. Bernie's fans on reddit and beyond are certainly using the "rig" word just like Donald's fans are though!
hngryhppos 7y ago
It makes sense that Biden's is the only campaign who is outwardly complaining about this debacle. The other viable candidates (Sanders, but also Buttigieg and Warren to a lesser extent) can't complain without appearing weak / bitter for having their win dampened. But Biden, who almost certainly did rather poorly last night, benefits significantly from this whole ordeal distracting from narrative of his campaign in freefall, and by complaining about the DNC it might keep up the illusion that he is not a party favorite afforded every advantage possible.
iainmerrick 7y ago
It’s no surprise that internal polling numbers, when reported, favour the candidate that collected the numbers.

phkahler 7y ago

One would think the person with the most votes is their best hope. But apparently the leadership thinks they know better than data.

wunderland 7y ago
The DNC leadership is controlled by large donors who have billions of reasons to oppose a candidate like Sanders.
dmurray 7y ago
Having the most votes in the party caucuses is definitely not equivalent to having the best chance to win the election, where you have to appeal to a different set of voters.
- tveita 7y ago
  The major deficiency of the two-party system is that the parties have to resort to this kind of second-guessing the "average voter" instead of just presenting all the options and letting the voters choose for themselves.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    In most democracies that don’t suffer from the two-party system, there is as far as I’m aware nothing like the American primary/caucus system. The parties just decide who their candidates are with no input from anyone but dues-paying party members.
    - dmurray 7y ago
      The last UK leadership election for the Labour Party [0] had a turnout of 500k+, or roughly 1% of the population. I won't bore you with the details of whether it's correct to think of all 500k as "dues-paying members". That's a lot less than the 30 million or 10% of population [1] who voted in the last Democratic primaries in 2016, but not "nothing like" it. And we could pick other years the turnout was much lower, e.g. 7 million [2] in 2012 where Obama did not have meaningful opposition). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Labour_Party_leadership_election_(UK) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Labour_Party_leadership_e... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presiden... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Democratic_Party_presiden...
      - tveita 7y ago
        UK is not a good counterexample here. It also uses the first-past the post voting system, which trends towards two parties since any third party becomes a spoiler. With a different voting system there would be a wider range of smaller parties, so you don't need to wrest control of a major party to be represented.
cableshaft 7y ago
It seems there are people in the Democratic establishment that would rather have 4 more years of Trump than elect a non-establishment Democrat they can't control. At least with Trump they can spend 4 years pointing to him and saying what a disaster he is to better position themselves for next election. Here's an Op-Ed piece that makes that argument: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/15/it-clear-establishment-and-corporate-media-would-prefer-trump-reelection-president https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/15/it-clear-estab... And I would even argue that it's not always best to go with the person who gets the most votes amongst the Democrats. Most Democrats and Republicans will vote for their party in the election, no matter who the nominee is. So I would think the best person to win the election would be a candidate that is able to get the most support from across the aisle, from Independents and Republicans. This election, it seems like the top candidates for that are Yang, Biden, or Tulsi, based on what few articles I can find on the matter. https://www.businessinsider.com/right-leaning-voters-support-andrew-yang-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/right-leaning-voters-support... https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/476265-poll-gop-voters-drawn-to-biden-more-than-other-2020-democrats https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/476265-poll-gop-voters-dra... https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/tulsi-gabbards-support-skews-conservative-and-male.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/tulsi-gabbards-suppo... But it doesn't seem like the DNC cares about that as much as long as one of the establishment candidates wins the nomination (Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, Kloubuchar).
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  Washington's warning rings true in this case. The really odd side-effect, though maybe not unpredictable, is the amount of people who voice approach along the lines of 'burn it all down, start from scratch'. Sentiment like that must be scary to the existing powers. That said, I have no idea how common that is. The weirdest thing about it is that Trump seems very much result of this trend. edit: changed verb is to seems
- phkahler 7y ago
  >> Most Democrats and Republicans will vote for their party in the election, no matter who the nominee is. >> So I would think the best person to win the election would be a candidate that is able to get the most support from across the aisle, from Independents and Republicans. Well that means picking a candidate specifically for the swing votes, which may be very different than what party members want. In other words someone that almost nobody likes. But hey, they can win. Because people will vote their party regardless.

criley2 7y ago

I find it entertaining that the only groups calling "rigged" and sowing disinformation without any evidence is Donald Trump and his sons, and Bernie supporters. When folks say that Bernie is very Trump-like and his followers very similar to Trumps, they can use "rigged" Iowa caucuses as another great datapoint. Caucuses are notoriously messy and take time to tabulate and understand. No one including the national party likes them. The funniest thing about your lazy "rig" attack is that the national parties DO NOT RUN THESE PROCESSES! It's literally entirely state-run. So, according to Donald Trump and Bernie supporters, the Iowa state Democratic Party is rigging their own caucus by feigning incompetence purely of their own accord to help Washington insiders. The minority party of a tiny conservative state is self-rigging to help DC oligarchs, apparently. Ridiculous. EDIT: For the record, you are amplifying dangerous political disinformation that is being intentionally used to sow discord and division by the GOP https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1224672579023261707 https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1224672579023261707 EDIT2: If you truly want to see a "rigged" process, look at the GOP, who have CANCELLED dozens of primaries and declared Trump the nominee by act from on high. Literally just cancelled democracy. But sure, caucuses suck.

nextstep 7y ago
This is just not true. Biden’s campaign has complained about the way this caucus was run: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/481315-biden-campaign-calls-for-answers-from-iowa-dems-after-delays-in-caucus https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/481315-biden-campaign-... Bernie’s campaign, on the other hand, has multiple times rejected the notion that the process was rigged: https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-campaign-refutes-trump-claim-that-dnc-primary-election-is-rigged https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-campaign-refute...
- criley2 7y ago
  I was responding to someone who literally said the caucuses were rigged by the DNC to hurt Bernie. Read the thread please! And for the record: Biden has never called this process rigged at all. Your link shows him rightfully criticizing the many failures including the technology failures. Bernie's fans on reddit and beyond are certainly using the "rig" word just like Donald's fans are though!

hngryhppos 7y ago

It makes sense that Biden's is the only campaign who is outwardly complaining about this debacle. The other viable candidates (Sanders, but also Buttigieg and Warren to a lesser extent) can't complain without appearing weak / bitter for having their win dampened. But Biden, who almost certainly did rather poorly last night, benefits significantly from this whole ordeal distracting from narrative of his campaign in freefall, and by complaining about the DNC it might keep up the illusion that he is not a party favorite afforded every advantage possible.

iainmerrick 7y ago

It’s no surprise that internal polling numbers, when reported, favour the candidate that collected the numbers.