As you may recall, Obama's leaked delegate chart predicted a 20-13 split in Mississippi. Unfortunately on election night, it looked like Obama split the state 19-14.
The results were certified today and it appear that Obama ended up winning a 20-13 split. The reason for the shift is that if you put Obama and Clinton heads up: Obama won 62.512% of the vote, just above the 62.5% threshold for getting a 3-1 split in the 4 delegate PELO
I have two sources for the story, but this needs to be confirmed. To get to 62.5% of the vote for Obama you have to eliminate the votes cast for other candidates like Edwards. That makes sense to me since typically in a democratic primary you are not considered viable unless you have 15% of the vote. And this interpretation seems to be supported by my reading of the applicable democratic rules.
Better yet, I have learned since I first posted my diary that this 2 delegate shift resulted from the efforts of a lone blogger named voiceofreason, who spotted an error in the tally sheets.
The Mississippi Secretary of State Office put the certified Democratic primary results today. You can get those results here
In the certifed count, Obama got 265,502 votes; while Clinton got 159,221 votes. I would note that the spread between Obama and Clinton is 6,000 more votes for Obama than on election night. Obama total spread in Mississippi then was 106,000. However, there were also 3933 votes for Edwards;1816 votes for Biden; 1396 votes for Richardson; 912 for Kucinich; 739 votes for Dodd; and 591 votes for Gravel.
Based upon the certified results, the follow entry was made on the Democratic Underground:
Mississippi certified returns have been updated - Obama +1, Clinton -1
Advertisements [?]Edited on Mon Mar-31-08 04:37 PM by thevoiceofreason
Last week I wrote a math nerd alert where it seemed the official state summary did not match with a couple of counties (where the absentee and mail-in returns broke strong for Obama). Today, the Mississippi Secretary of State posted the new numbers. The final tally is:
Obama - 265,502
Clinton - 159,221
That gives Obama a heads-up 62.512% victory, which WILL switch another state-wide at-large delegate to him (there are 4 statewide pledged PLEO's in Mississippi, so 62.5% is the tipping point for them to break 3-1 instead of 2-2).
Net net? Now Mississippi broke 20-13.
Marc Ambinder of the Altanic reports the same thing--although without any sources:
Another Pledged Delegate For Obama
31 Mar 2008 09:14 pm
Mississippi has recalculated -- Obama's margin of victory is above the 62.5% threshold, and so he adds a delegate and Clinton gets one taken away.
That means that Obama's pledged delegate lead is now at 169.
Given that two delegates is a big deal these days. I went and checked the Democratic Rules on delegate allotment. Those rules seem to confirm that you eliminate the votes of those who got less than 15%. Go to this page, then click rules and regulation and turn to page 31 (which is page 35 of the PDF).
If these reports are correct, Obama has had another good day and the Slate's Deathwatch needs to be revised downward again.
UPDATED:
I just learned from Wuck in the comments below that a lone blogger, voiceofreason, on Democratic Underground spotted the shift last week. Indeed, voiceofreason might have caught an error that no one might have ever caught. And this catch netted Obama two more delegates. A link to this blogger's catch can be found here A big thank you to voiceofreason! Great find.
Moreover, the story of how voiceofreason spotted the split is testimony to the power of netroots. The blogger wrote:
The election night total for Barack was 255,809 (62.16% vs. Hillary)
The election night total for Hillary was 155,686 (37.84% vs. Barack)
Although many of the splits were close, the one that stood the best chance of flipping, as I saw it, was the statewide PLEO split because Barack only need to break 62.5% to get a 3-1 split there.
Well, the results kept trickling in. I followed them on a district by district basis, hoping something big would happen (it didn't).
Then today, for the first time, the Miss. SOS posted the statewide recapitulation they had received from the democratic party. The numbers made me want to cry. Barack's new total was 265,370, Hillary's was 159,273. When held side by side (as you do in Miss., I believe) Barack now had 62.493%. CRAP. I pouted for a while, then decided, in the middle of another conference call, to compare the statewide recapitulation with individual county recapitulations (I kind of like that word - "recapitulation"). As I did, I found two counties whose numbers were different on the statewide summary as opposed to the county certification, as follows:
Hinds County actually voted 342 more for Obama, and 37 more for Clinton, than the statewide sheet showed.
Jackson County actually voted 210 fewer for Obama, and 89 lower for Clinton, than the statewide count.
Net changes: Obama +132, Clinton -52, total vote change (between the 2) +80.
Because I'm not wise to the ways of Mississippi and its vote recapitulations, I called the State Democratic Party. Their guy on the phone pulled the sheets I was referencing and said "You're right. We'll change those numbers right away."
GUESS WHAT?!? Obama's statewide vote total is (or will soon be) 265,502. Hillary's is (or soon will be) 159,221.
That means Obama's percentage is 265,502/424,723, or 62.512%. Barack will get 3 PLEO delegates to Hillary's 1!!!!!!
Barack wins Mississippi 20-13!
UPDATE #2
After milling around Democratic Underground, I determined that our hero, voiceofreason, appears to be a Texas attorney named Jeff who lives in Houston. I will definitely buy him a drink on my next trip to Houston. And if anybody knows somebody in the Obama campaign, this guy needs his story up on the campaign website. He is a real inspiration.