LogFAQs > #933933641

KamikazePotato posted...

This is the first time I've paid close attention to caucus stuff - you're telling me it's a mini Electoral College?

It's arguably worse! Iowa does some really dumb shit with the caucus.

First off, they're reporting out 3 different results (each of which could have a different winner if things had gone full CHAOS)

A basic overview is:

1. They take a count of where everyone groups up at first. This is the "first alignment" count of voters that is reported.

2. Then the whole viability thing comes into play where any group that fails to reach 15% has to either join one of the viable groups or team up with other non-viable folks to get to 15% (Like say Biden and Klob get 9 and 7 respectively. Neither is viable but if the Klob voters agree to join the Biden group they can get to 16 and become viable even though they missed it on the first count) Or these nonviable people can just go home. "yeah"

Once they work through this and are left with only viable groups that count is the "final alignment" count that gets reported out

3. Get ready for the absurd. Note that prior to this cycle this used to be the only way Iowa reported its results. They take the final alignment result and turn it into "state delegate equivalents" (SDEs). Basically, every precinct gets weighed according to how the last Democratic president did in turnout for the 2016 general and how the Democratic governor candidate did in turnout for the 2018 general. So Clinton obviously as well as Fred Hubbell who was the candidate for governor in 2018.

This... obviously makes things more complicated for a number of reasons. First off general turnout is much higher than caucus turnout. Also caucus turnout has typically been higher in more liberal, urban/suburban areas proportionately so these weights will generally see rural precincts favored in this transition. This is why places like 538 were talking about the real possibility of Sanders "underperforming" his actual vote total when you got to SDEs and conversely how Buttigieg/Klobuchar and even Biden could punch way above his weight there.

It's this SDE count that is used to determine delegates sent to the convention so in that sense it's the result that is most directly meaningful to the process and again why it used to be the only metric reported out by Iowa before this cycle.

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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?