Well, I feel disenfranchised because I wasn't asked to participate in an exit poll (in fact, it appears no Republican was), so my influence on this national electoral-o-sphere was not counted and this is ludicrous. Who can I sue to fix this travesty? This has to be unconstitutional in some way. I have one additional comment, but I'll save it for the end.
Relevant to the point, and probably of more interest to various internet searches curious about the breakdown of the vote in Delaware, the State News broke down the vote slightly differently than CNN, and so for those political junkies worried about the role of the First State in this process, fear not:
For the Dems (according to this morning's paper):
Obama = 50,953 53%
Clinton = 40,587 42%
Biden (who explicitly asked people not to vote for him) = 2,858 3%
John Edwards 1,234 1%
Dennis Kucinich 190 <1%
Christopher Dodd 170 <1%
For the Republicans:
McCain 22,511 45%
Romney 16,280 33%
Huckabee 7,673 15%
Ron Paul 2,122 4%
Giuilanai 1,249 2%
Tom Tancredo 175 <1%
I had to look up Tom Tancredo to learn that he was out of the race before it even started, so I find that he got votes almost as funny as the fact that Biden did.
In either case, the final tally, according to CNN, was 51,124 (53%) to 40,751 (43%), which gives Obama a 9:6 edge on delegates.
One final thought on this (interesting) letter to the editor. I have half a mind to put pen to paper and write a response to it, and I may, but for now, I'll simply say that they are incorrect. You can vote in the general election, so your argument fails. Period. Even assuming that the primary process is a "stage" in the election, and it is not, how does your inability to vote for a potential affiliated candidate possibly disenfranchise your vote when you have consciously decided not to affiliate yourself with a party? Answer: It doesn't. If anything, your vote screws up the result. Alternative answer: If you don't like it, declare a party.
This whole process makes me wonder how many people are under the erroneous impression that you must vote straight ticket based on your party? If the answer is more than ten percent, I see that as a sad commentary on the political system.
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4 comments:
love the blog - you should write about how the delaware supreme court recently upheld a murder conviction resulting in a death sentence - from a legal perspective, the case is relevant because the us supreme court is also weighing in on the death penalty. it basically confirms that lethal injection is constitutional in delaware.
the case is sykes v. state and is available at http://courts.delaware.gov/opinions/(5luhhivx0eaz0p2vb5iwee55)/list.aspx?ag=supreme%20court
It absolutely infuriates me that our state's voters, chose to vote for a candidate that had dropped out of the race. Are we that ignorant, that we actively choose to go to the polls without knowing who is even competing? I am glad people are coming out to the polls in record numbers, even in Delaware where our votes don't weigh the same as elsewhere. But please, with this election poised to be the single biggest governmental choice in our lifetimes, isn't it our civic duty to be able to discern between candidates that are running and those who are not? Over 7,000 votes cast for candidates not in the race. That means 1 out of every 20 who voted threw their vote away. Our next big choice is the general election, and I can't wait to see how many votes come in for Gore or Kerry. I truly hope our state begins to pay attention in the coming weeks, because those numbers are ludicrous.
Yes, I agree that it's rather silly that people voted for Biden when a) he's not on the ballot and b) he explicitly wrote to both papers basically begging people NOT to throw their vote away for him. For me, it makes me put a little more stock into the cries of foul and voter confusion when now-AG "Beau" Biden listed his name on the ballot as "Joe Biden, Jr."
But again, how many people every election day write in votes for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck? Those numbers are just as ludicrous.
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