The Clinton campaign likes to talk about how the Florida and Michigan delegations should be seated at full strength because we have to “count every vote.” Hillary Clinton’s express appeal to the emotional experience of voter disenfranchisement in Bush-Gore Florida 2000 is meant to short-circuit thinking about the issue. After all, who would want to argue that we shouldn’t count every vote?
In fact, Florida and Michigan are almost certain to have their delegations seated at the convention in some fashion. Clinton is pushing for it; Obama has said he is committed to having it happen as well. The question is what value will each vote from these states end up having relative to the delegate count that is the metric of the nomination contest.
Florida and Michigan are likely to have their delegations seated at the convention with their delegates’ votes being valued at half instead of full strength, as the regulations that everyone knew about and agreed to ahead of time call for. If this is done, Florida and Michigan will be punished for their unsanctioned primaries not by disenfranchising their voters but by recalculating the value of their votes per delegate.
The value of vote per delegate in the Democratic presidential nomination process already varies wildly per state depending on a number of factors, including the jurisdiction’s popular vote for the Democratic candidate for President in the last three presidential elections, how late the jurisdiction’s primary falls in the cycle, and whether it has electoral votes or not. Setting a penalty on states that hold unsanctioned primaries in order to maintain some semblance of order in the process is just another one of those factors, and under the circumstances, not inherently disenfranchising.
For example:
- In the California Democratic primary there were 5,066,993 votes cast for a total of 441 (370 + 71) delegates, or 11,490 votes/delegate.
- In the Democrats Abroad primary there were 23,105 votes cast for a total of 11 (7 + 4) delegates, or 2100 votes/delegate.
- In the Rhode Island Democratic primary there were 186,657 votes cast for a total of 33 (21 + 12) delegates, or 5656 votes/delegate.
- In the Massachusetts Democratic primary there were 1,263,764 votes cast for a total of 121 (93 + 28) delegates, or 10,444 votes/delegate.
- In the Pennsylvania Democratic primary there were 2,307,759 votes cast for a total of 187 (158 + 29) delegates, or 12,341 votes/delegate.
- In the Illinois Democratic primary there were 2,038,614 votes cast for a total of 184 (153 + 31) delegates, or 11,079 votes/delegate.
- In the New York Democratic primary there were 1,891,143 votes cast for a total of 281 (232 + 49) delegates, or 6730 votes/delegate.
(total vote figures from The Green Papers)
This isn’t even getting to the caucuses, compared to which the numbers of votes per delegate in big states like California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania are already significantly undervalued.
So instead of Florida having its 1,749,920 Democratic primary votes for 211 delegates valued at 8293/delegate, if they’re given a 50% penalty they’ll instead be valued at 16,586/delegate. Admittedly high, but certainly not disenfranchisement.
And if Michigan gets a 50% penalty, their 594,398 votes for 157 delegates will be reduced in value from 3786/delegate to 7572/delegate – still more bang for the buck per voter than for the voters in many states, including California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.