By the way, independent voters tend to vote Obama. In CA, they went 58-34 for him.

Thanks for spreading the good word, Todd.

Here's a little more meat on the bone:

Clinton spanked Obama 55% to 41% in LA County, which was a spread of about 163,000 votes.  Statewide, Decline to State broke about Obama 61% to Clinton 31%.   If you multiply that 30% differential by 94,500 unrecorded decline to state ballots, you get a net under count difference for Obama of about 28,350.  This would shift the LA County total results to 53% Clinton and 43% Obama (a 10 point loss and not a 14 point loss).

There is no way of knowing if this would effect the delegate allocation unless you do a full recount by Congressional District.  However, in most LA County Congressional Districts, the delegate allocations broke to Clinton, including (Clinton-Obama):

CA-27: 3-2
CA-28; 3-2
CA-29; 3-2
CA-31; 3-1
CA-32; 3-1
CA-34; 3-1
CA-36; 3-2
CA-38; 3-1
CA-39; 3-1

It might also affect the overall Statewide delegate allocation slightly from the current Clinton 51.9%/Obama 42.3% to Clinton 51.4%/Obama 42.7% (an eight point loss and not a ten point loss).

The bottom line is that it could be a two to four delegate shift from Clitnon to Obama.  

this has the power to move the election for obama by  1/2 of a percentage point. when rounding is taking into account, there is no statistical change.

The DTS votes should count.  

Despite the fact that the instructions were exceedingly clear:  FILL IN THIS BUBBLE IF YOU WANT YOUR VOTE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY TO COUNT or something like that.  

Beyond that, I think we need to move back to closed caucuses and primaries.  It's not as if there are onerous requirements to become a Democrat...you just have to say you are one.   If you can't even do that, then why in hell should you have a vote in our primary?   It's as if I could vote on what your family has for dinner or where you take your vacations.

The independents whine, "But we don't get to have a say."  Bull.  It's your choice.  You want to have a say, register with one of the parties or shut the eff up.

. . .not this again. First of all, your number of voters "disenfranchised" is all wet. To quote the LA Times article on which you are apparently basing your claims,

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition /california/la-me-vote7feb07,1,1380058.s tory?ctrack=1&cset=true

"Logan said election workers had identified about 189,000 votes cast by nonpartisans in Los Angeles County. About half of those people marked a bubble indicating they were voting in a party primary, which leaves more than 94,000 ballots in doubt."

There were half a dozen State initiatives on the ballot. There were also 10 local measures on the ballot in LA county. 189,000 non-party voters voted in the LA county. About half of them indicated on their ballots that they wanted to vote in a presidential party primary. The other half, that is, the famous "94,000," did not so indicate. Perhaps, SOME of these 94,000 intended to do so, but to claim that they all did, when there were 16 other things or more to vote on, is ludicrous.

In addition, even if some of these non party voters did intend to vote in a presidential primary, another problem exists in regards to counting their votes. From the same article:

"Election workers will examine these ballots to see if voters marked a presidential candidate. But even if they did, it may be difficult to count them. .. .The presidential ballot for independents who voted in the Democratic primary was the same as the ballot for those who voted in the American Independent primary. . . In the American Independent contest, there were three candidates running, while the Democratic Party had eight. The bubbles for the first three candidates in each party were in the same position on the ballot, making it impossible to tell after the fact if a voter was voting Democratic or American Independent -- unless that person also filled in the bubble indicating party preference."

Thus, there is no way of telling which party these non party voters, who did not fill out the part of the ballot indicating which party's (the Democrat's or the American Independent's) primary they were voting in, intended to vote in. Now, you might say, since the Democratic party had 8 candidates, and the AI party had only 3, all of the ballots should be examined, and the Democratic presidential primary candidates in positions 4 through 8 should be award the votes marked for them. But, the presidential candidates in positions one through three would then be disadvantaged, because none of their potential voters can be distinguished from AI voters.

This is now the third time that I have dealt with this issue, and it is getting a little tiresome. The hubristically, and self-congratulatorily, named "Courage Campaign" should really think this over, if they want to retain any credibility as anything other than a non Obama-front organization. They are grasping at straws in their desperate attemmpt to discredit Hillary's crushing win in California. Hillary kicked ass in SoCal, and the numbers coming out of LA County are not out of line with the numbers from neighboring counties, like Ventura and Orange. Moreover, this particular ballot configuration has been used for years. The Obama campaign, the election board, and "Fort Courage" itself, put out numerous press releases prior to the election, instructing non party voters what they needed to do to have their votes, in parties to which they did not take the trouble to join but nevertheless wanted to influence the primary of, count. The failure of these carpetbagger, "Democrat for a Day" voters to follow these simple rules is not the fault of the election board, or anyone else, but themselves.

In every election, there are ballots which are improperly marked. There is nothing unusual or suspicious about that. In this case, in all likelihood, there were very few non party voters who intended to vote in the Democratic party and whose votes were not counted because the voters failed to fill out their paperwork properly. There is nothing nefarious going on here, except perhaps on the part of these "independent," "voters' rights" groups who just can't stand it that their preferred, allegedly "progressive," candidate is actually less popular in LA County than Hillary Clinton.

Actually that is a good thing. It is idiocy that Independents can vote to determine the Democratic nominee and millions in later states may not even get the chance. If Indies want to vote in a primary they need to field a candidate. They have no business in the Repug or Democratic primary.

to vote in a primary is that each party (usually) NEEDs them to win the general election.

Ignore them or mistreat them and they'll go cast their ballot for the other guy.

I thought they covered that before the election?  From what I read it didn't matter if the DTS ballots were marked with preference because state law said they didn't need to be.  If LA County was big Clinton country I could see the where there camp would be more than upset since it is a tight delegate race.

But yeah, I thought this was all hashed out before the election.

Thanks Todd for bringing this up. As an election protection attorney here in LA, I had a first-hand view of how this went down in about 20 precincts. Not one of the poll workers knew that DTS voters had to mark the second bubble in order to have their votes counted until they were told about it later in the day, some just a couple of hours before the polls closed.

What makes me so angry is that is what so unnecessary. In many of my precincts, the poll workers incorrectly believed that DTS voters who wanted to vote in the Democratic primary should be given a Democratic ballot. In those precincts, DTS voters did have their votes counted, because the tabulation machines have not way of knowing whether the ballot was being cast by a Democrat or an independent, and thus no need to mark the second bubble. This is also how it's done in every other county in California, and in every other state in the union, as far as I know. It's didn't have to be complicated at all -- if they want to vote in the Democratic primary, given them a Democratic ballot and direct them to the Democratic booth.

But according to the LA County Registrar, if a DTS voter wanted to vote in the Democratic primary, they should be given a "nonpartisan" ballot that they must then take to the Democratic booth, but they're vote will not count unless they both select their candidate and fill in a second bubble, which meant nothing other than the redundancy that they intended to vote in the Democratic primary, which should've been self-evident by the fact that they requested to vote in the Democratic primary, carried their ballot into the Democratic voting booth and marked their preference for a Democratic candidate.

It's just ridiculous, and I find it hard to believe that at least a few delegates would be flipped if those ballots are properly counted.

If they're legitimate votes, they should count.  I don't think that there is necessarily a clear beneficiary.  Yes, Obama won DTS statewide, but this is also a Clinton stronghold.  It's entirely possible that the DTS vote in a Clinton stronghold favors Clinton, not Obama.

I'd love to help out the Courage Campaign, but I have little sympathy for those who (1) refuse to choose a party and (2) can't even read or follow simple enough directions.

Am I missing something? Is there more to it than that?

I've seen the arguments and deplore that anyone who made the effort to vote won't have his/her vote counted, but this is not disenfranchisement. This does not rise to the level of preventing someone from voting. Those voters must take responsibility too. It's not like they were tricked. Or is that what they're claiming?

It could have and should have been handled better, but the instructions were still clear, albeit insufficient for 94k voters.

Maybe I just don't understand the how it works in LA, but it seems like a declared Democrat voting on a Democratic ballot is extremely unlikely to be voting on the wrong ballot, whereas a person who has "Declined To State" a party preference might justifiably be asked to verify their intent.  Without verification, it's not hard to imagine a situation where thousands of people would be saying they voted for a Democrat by mistake.

Maybe there is a better way to do it, but this does not strike me as outrageous.  From your description, it sounds like these people just failed to read the ballot.

In fact, I think a reasonable argument can be made that independents should not be allowed to vote in party primaries (and in many states they aren't) because it distorts the process.  Disallowing them does not disenfranchise anyone, because they had the option to register as Democrats.  If they are not members of the party, why should they get to choose its candidates?

I'm just saying I do not find this outrageous.

Maybe I just don't understand the how it works in LA, but it seems like a declared Democrat voting on a Democratic ballot is extremely unlikely to be voting on the wrong ballot, whereas a person who has "Declined To State" a party preference might justifiably be asked to verify their intent.  Without verification, it's not hard to imagine a situation where thousands of people would be saying they voted for a Democrat by mistake.

Maybe there is a better way to do it, but this does not strike me as outrageous.  From your description, it sounds like these people just failed to read the ballot.

In fact, I think a reasonable argument can be made that independents should not be allowed to vote in party primaries (and in many states they aren't) because it distorts the process.  Disallowing them does not disenfranchise anyone, because they had the option to register as Democrats.  If they are not members of the party, why should they get to choose its candidates?

I'm just saying I do not find this outrageous.

As a teacher, I have long ago learned that when I give a test or an assignment that is not clear, many students will not understand and therefore not complete the assignment/test correctly. This becomes obvious when the number of students making such mistakes is relatively large. Consequently, I then realize the problem was my fault, not theirs, because what I had thought was readily understandable and explicable in reality was not. The blame is on the author of the product, not the user. The same would seem to me to apply here.

When more than 94,000 people do not understand the directions clearly enough to follow them accurately, then the problem is with the directions, not the 94,000 voters.As with the infernal butterfly ballots in Florida 2000, why make the voting process and the ballot itself needlessly complicated. Why not be as simplistic as possible. Again, if the voter selected either Hillary or Obama on the ballot, one can reasonably assume they intended to vote for the Democratic slate of candidates, not the Republican one. All of these ballots should be counted, no matter the outcome in favor of one candidate or another. It is getting too scary how often we now find elections in which voters are being disenfranchised because of faulty ballots, voting machines, and poorly trained or incompetent poll workers. This must not continue. Every person who wants to vote should be able to do so if they are legal residents of the community where they are trying to vote, and then every vote should be counted. We should not stop counting at 87% of the total votes cast when our preferred candidate has finally surged ahead. This is not true Democracy. We must count all legal votes and make it as easy as possible to get as many people to vote as want to vote. Period.

WOW

Lets get excited about counting INDEPENDENTS who didn't vote correctly.

But no out cry about the FLORIDA and MICHIGAN Where 10 times more DEMOCRATIC votes are being discarded by DEAN and OBAMA

Are we voting for the INDEPENDENT candidate for president or the DEMOCRATIC candidate?

Pardon me, but didn't Hillary and Obama (et al.) agree BEFORE the FL and MI primaries that they would support the DNC rules regarding moving primaries ahead? There was no noise at the time about hedging bets, withdrawing support of the idea, or of anything except agreement to go along with the ruling. That is why Hillary and Obama (et al.) did not campaign there, did not run local advertisements, and respected the DNC ruling on the matter.

Now that Hillary is falling behind in delegate totals, she suddenly wants to change the rules in the middle of the contest just because doing so  now works more in her favor. Suddenly Hillary supporters are trying to make it look like Obama is the obstructionist trying to prevent these FL/MI democrats from having their votes counted!  In reality, those contests cannot be fairly representative of the status of affairs and levels of support for the two remaining candidates because we will never be able to prove that every Democrat that might have voted in an honest, DNC sanctioned election actually voted during the past primaries.  Many did, no doubt, but they did so with full knowledge that the DNC had already said their votes would not count. They voted knowing that, so why all the sour grapes now? How many more might have voted (but didn't) if the vote had been done properly in accordance with DNC rules? Shouldn't their votes also be counted? All the more reason to do these primaries over, either as new primaries or as caucuses.

Changing the rules after the contest has been carried out is patently unfair and should not be allowed. If FL and MI want to have their votes counted and delegates seated, they should hold new primaries or caucuses and stop bellyaching because they are not happy with the current state of affairs. If they choose not to do that, then they should acknowledge that they are not entitled to delegates based on unfairly run primaries in which all  candidates were not able to compete fair and square and let the people have their say accordingly. We cannot change the rules of the game after the game is already in progress.

seeking to vote in the Dem primary, sounds like it would be most likely a large chuck of potential Obama votes sitting there in SoCal,... no?