Amidst all the news of Barack Obama's success this past weekend, a mantra that's been repeated again and again is the record-setting turnout seen all across the country. Well, this past weekend, in Washington state, caucus goers there participated at a rate that put it at the top of the list of all the states having participated so far this year.
According to reports, about 100,000 Washingtonians decided to make their preference for the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee heard. If you compare this to the 1.51 million Washingtonians who voted for John Kerry in 2004, you get a participation rate of 6.6% of the electorate deciding to make their voices heard. This is the worst participation rate we have seen yet this year, breaking the previous low of 8.1% set by Alaska where about 9000 participants out of the 111000 who voted for John Kerry in 2004. It would appear that Washington's effort to completely confuse voters and encourage disenfranchisement worked.
Much too little has been written so far this year on the undemocratic nature of the caucuses, but here's some more of this year's lowlights: Kansas with a participation rate of 8.5%, Maine at 11.6%, Colorado at 11.9%, and Minnesota at 13.8%. This is democracy? The caucus with the highest rate of participation? That would be Nevada, where 118000 Nevadans voted in 2008 compared to the 397000 who voted for Kerry in 2004, for this year's top caucus turnout rate of 29.7%, jsut edging out the 29.6% who showed up in Iowa. Unsurprisingly, Nevada remains Hillary Clinton's sole caucus victory.
You can add up all the participants in Washington, Alaska, Kansas, Maine, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, Idaho, North Dakota, Iowa, Nevada, throw in the party-run primaries in New Mexico and Utah and you'll still only have 1.3 million participants, or about 450,000 fewer than Florida.
The only primary election where voters turned out at a lower rate than ANY of the various caucuses was in disenfranchised Michigan, which still had a greater rate of participation that ALL of the caucus states other than Iowa and Nevada. In Florida, the more 1.75 million people cast a ballot which Barack Obama deems worthless, represent 48.8% of the electorate which voted for John Kerry in 2004. That's a rate better than Connecuticut, New York, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arizona, and Delaware. States like New Jersey, California, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois were in the 57-67% range.
Sure enough, there have been a few states were Obama has actually faced the electorate and done well. He's spurred large turnout among African American voters in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina where turnout in the primary was between 76-80% of the total number who voted for Kerry in 2004. He's sure to do well in the Chesapeake primaries for the same reason. But the record turnout this year? That would be New Hampshire, won by Hillary Clinton, where 84.7% of the Kerry voters showed up to vote. And in second place? That would be Oklahoma, where 82.7% of them came out to vote, and vote overwhelmingly for Hillary too.
In states won by Obama, 6.6 million Americans have decided the distribution of 925 delegates, for a rate of 1 delegate for every 7000 or so participants. In states won by Hillary Clinton, 12.6 million American have decided the distribution of 1072 delegates, or 1 delegate for every 11700 participants. You want to complain about the superdelegates? Well let's talk about caucuses and Michigan and Florida too. Let's talk about ridiculous delegate distribution rules as seen in Nevada. And let's talk about the ridiculous way that Washington went out of its way to encourage voter disenfranchisement, and that Texas has a eerily similar scheme.
Let's get a little more democracy in our democracy.
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