If you check
diary you will see three previous entries in my examination of the WA delegate count. Part One shows some strange results in the partial precinct count, where some candidates actually had delegates subtracted from their count over time. Part Two has a story from someone who witnessed Dean win delegates and then have them taken away when the county clerk recorded them inaccurately. Part Three has a followup from that witness, describing their efforts to partially audit results from a district, where he found more errors.
I called the WA Secretary Of State's office today to ask if they knew anything, and they confirmed that they have absolutely nothing to do with the caucuses, and the results never even get reported to the SOS office for certification. It's all handled by the state Democratic Party. The man I talked to knew a bit more about the process than I did, describing how results could be reported from the precinct up to the county level, but he ("Justin") was also interested to hear that some candidates actually had delegates subtracted from their total over time.
I attempted to contact the Washington Democratic Party today to find out some answers to some questions I had, but at the time I called, their phone was inoperable. Basically, any extension I tried to dial returned you to the main recording, where you couldn't even leave a voice mail.
I am occupied for the rest of the day, but here are the questions I was going to ask if anyone would like to follow up. I tried to call:
Paul Berendt, State Party Chair
(206) 583-0664
paul@wa-democrats.org
The questions:
- There are 6497 out of 6552 precincts reporting, leaving 55. While WA has an average of 4 delegates per precinct (with a total of 26,934 delegates), the results show that 3,392 delegates are left to be reported. So these 55 remaining precincts are very large in comparison, an average of 61 delegates per precinct. Is there any news on the results from the remaining 55 delegates? Is there reason to believe that their results would have different percentages among the candidates than the results already reported?
- I've been following some news of complaints about certain precincts having delegates taken away from Dean and awarded to other candidates. Are you aware of this and do you have knowledge if this is being looked at on a statewide level at all?
- Do you have knowledge of how the delegates are reported to the news media outlets? How does the AP get their numbers?
- What are the circumstances in which someone's delegates, after being reported to the media, could actually shrink as more precincts are reported?
- How could CNN/Fox have have had numbers different than the AP? Why did the show a surge for Kerry when a few minutes later Kerry's numbers were revised back downwards to be in accordance with AP numbers?
- Can you give me a description of the steps in the reporting process from precinct to state to media?
If anyone else would like to try their hand at contacting the WA democratic party and getting answers to these questions, please do so. Feel free to point to my
weblog entry that has screenshots of all the partial results.
If you think this deserves more attention, please tell other weblogs so we can get some more people talking about it.
tunesmith