I was a Dean delegate in 2004, and I have seen a lot of misinformation on KOS about voting for delegates. I know how it works, at least in the 5th district of PA, where I live (in the "T" part of PA, where Centre County, home to Penn State University, is, mark my words, going to go for Obama!
Here are the points to remember about delegate voting from an email I sent to my friends encouraging them to vote for Obama delegate Mary Vollero:
1. The only thing that helps your candidate is your vote for that candidate for president. Voting for a candidate's delegates DOES NOT IN ANY WAY HELP THAT CANDIDATE!! (VERY counter-intuitive, but true.) Your vote for a delegate only helps that delegate be first in line among his/her candidate's delegates OF THE SAME GENDER to go to the convention. That's ALL a vote for a delegate does: help determine who's first in line among that particular candidate's delegates to go to the convention! (It's the vote for president only that determines which candidate gets how many delegates, and the votes for delegates that determines which of that candidate's delegates go to the convention first.)
2. So, delegates are only competing with other delegates FOR THE SAME CANDIDATE, OF THE SAME GENDER. That means if you vote for all 4 delegates (in the 5th district we have 4) for the same presidential caniddate, IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS NOT VOTING FOR ANY, because your votes cancel each other out! If you vote for all delegates of the same gender for the same candidate, that again is exactly the same as not voting for any delegates of that gender, because your votes cancel each other out.
3. Candidates in each congressional district are awarded proportionally according to the presidential vote, and alternating, according to gender. The 5th district of PA has two women delegates and two men (so the state's delegation ends up roughly 50/50 by gender). So let's say, just for example, Hillary Clinton wins the 5th district by such a margin that she gets 3 of the delegates and Barack Obama gets 1. The first to go to the convention will be the FEMALE CLINTON DELEGATE WITH THE MOST VOTES, EVEN IF THERE IS A MALE CLINTON DELEGATE WHO HAS MORE VOTES (you see why you should not vote for all the female Clinton delegates if there's one in particular you want to send to the convention). The next delegate to go will be the male Clinton delegate with the most votes, then the female Obama delegate with the highest vote total, then the male Obama delegate with the highest vote total.
4. SO you should ONLY vote for delegates you want to help get to the convention (if you vote for all the Obama delegates, you're NOT HELPING ANYONE AT ALL). There is no need to use all 4 of your allotted delegate votes if you dont' want to. IT WILL NOT MATTER TO THE OUTCOME OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY WHETHER YOU VOTE FOR ANY DELEGATES OR NOT. It only matters to the individual delegates, who of course want to go to the convention. The presidential outcome is ONLY affected by your vote for the presidential candidates themselves, NOT by your votes for their delegates!
Here's what I plan to do: I plan to vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday. I am going to vote for Mary Vollero, an Obama delegate who has been a tireless activist for verifiable voting. I also plan to vote for Greg Stewart the founder of Centre County for Obama (who has been working to get Obama elected for at least a year!). I do not plan to vote for any other Obama delegates, although I am sure there are others who are great people. I just don't know of them or their work the way I do Greg and Mary. Then I'll look over the list of Clinton delegates, and if I see names I know there, and know of their work for the Democratic Party and/or progressive causes, I will vote for them as well (but not more than the allowed total of 4 in the 5th district, or it's an over-vote and does not count!). I will not vote for more than one delegate of the same gender for the same candidate, because I know I'll be voting against myself if I do!
So that's how it works in PA's 5th district. Honest. I was on the ballot there for Dean in 2004.