Primary calendar / poll closing times and delegate allocation megathread (Christmas is saved!)

[jimrtex]

Washington

March 26: Washington Democratic Caucus, Alaska Democratic Caucus

The legislature has funded the 2016 primary, and the SOS has proposed moving it to March 8.

[jimrtex]

TBA:

Washington

The green papers has dates for some of these:

March 5: Kansas Republican Caucus, Washington Republican Caucus

March 26: Washington Democratic Caucus, Alaska Democratic Caucus

Washington will hold its primary on May 24, the date set by state law. There is a provision in state law that permits a change in date, if approved by a 2/3 vote of a committee comprised of the four legislative leaders (or their designate), four state party leaders, and the Secretary of State.

This resulted in a 5:4 GOP advantage, but they were unable to secure a 6th vote to change the date to March 8 or March 22.

The Democratic party in Washington does not use the primary, and so didn't want to have a primary before their caucus, where it would be clear to all that they would be ignoring the results.

The Republican party has not set the date for their caucus. The March 5 date is based on 2012 when there was no primary.

[jimrtex]

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28700919/colorado-republicans-cancel-2016-presidential-caucus-vote

Wow. From the sound of it, they're not using a primary either, unless I'm reading it wrong.

The Republican party rules require that delegates to the national convention be bound by the results of a statewide vote, including one conducted at the precinct caucuses.

They are simply avoiding conducting such a poll, which permits the caucus to occur before March 1.  Colorado holds a multi-tiered convention system, that is also used as part of the nomination process for other offices. Candidates that may appear on the primary ballot are determined at the state convention for statewide offices, and district conventions for statewide offices. There is also a petition process for candidates who fail to win convention support.

So the procedure may discourage voters who want to treat a caucus like a primary - attend, vote, and leave. The precinct caucus would choose delegates to other conventions, such as a county or district convention. The delegation might or might not reflect the presidential preferences of those attending.

[jimrtex]

All that might happen is Iowa goes to January 25th and New Hampshire to February 1st. Pushing it back further would never happen, as the less attention Colorado gets, the more IA/NH gets, and moving both contests into January would increase the amount of attention given to CO. And New Hampshire will be punished if it goes in January - it was punished for going in January in 2012, so Priebus clearly has no qualms about punishing NH despite its pivotal place in the primary calendar.

I think the Democratic dates are frozen, or at least they will receive the same sanction that a state that moves into March does. Iowa and New Hampshire probably won't care, but it could be a problem if the partyies decide to enforce the candidate sanctions.

The Republican rules say that the four snowflakes can go a month earlier than the next earliest state.

[jimrtex]

All that might happen is Iowa goes to January 25th and New Hampshire to February 1st. Pushing it back further would never happen, as the less attention Colorado gets, the more IA/NH gets, and moving both contests into January would increase the amount of attention given to CO. And New Hampshire will be punished if it goes in January - it was punished for going in January in 2012, so Priebus clearly has no qualms about punishing NH despite its pivotal place in the primary calendar.

I think the Democratic dates are frozen, or at least they will receive the same sanction that a state that moves into March does. Iowa and New Hampshire probably won't care, but it could be a problem if the partyies decide to enforce the candidate sanctions.

The Republican rules say that the four snowflakes can go a month earlier than the next earliest state.

The Republican rules also say that ANY state that goes in January will have only 9 delegates at the convention, no matter what. Maybe Priebus will turn a blind eye towards Iowa, but he has no qualms at all with punishing NH.

CO should just clear things up by having all their caucuses in March.

Republican rules for convention

I interpret 16(c)(1) as letting a state move to one month before any interloper. So if North Carolina stays where they are at, they are going to get whacked AND South Carolina, etc. could still move.

Democratic rules only zap 50% of delegates, so Iowa and New Hampshire probably would not be bothered.

I don't see why South Carolina would be worried about North Carolina going a couple of days later, particularly if candidates are sanctioned if they have a rally in Raleigh and are only fighting over a few delegates. At most they will run a few more ads in Charlotte and say they are only going after South Carolina voters. And even if North Carolina moves to May, they'll still be running ads in Charlotte.

[jimrtex]

Is it known yet or is it currently possible to make a map of which states are winner-take-all vs proportional vs whatever for delegates right now (an incomplete map would be fine as well)?

There are plenty of other states though (including the biggest prize of all, California) that are "winner take most".  That is, WTA by congressional district.  So if someone won the state by 10 points or more, they'd probably win almost all the delegates, since they'd probably end up winning the bulk of the congressional districts.  Very few states are purely proportional.

On the Democratic side, though, every state is proportional, though with a 15% minimum threshold (either statewide or in a given congressional district) to receive any delegates.

Republican congressional districts are only allocated three delegates. They typically have thresholds of 15%, which in a contest with 17 candidates may be hard to achieve for more than the one candidate. If only one qualifies, then it is WTA. It is like Turkey on steroids (pun intended).

[jimrtex]

If you want to try to compile the Republican delegate rules for each state, go here:

Texas: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/TX-R
The update given in 2014 says that of the state’s 152 delegates, 75% will be allocated based on the results of the primary, while the remaining 25% will be allocated WTA at the state party convention.  But the details of how those 75% will be allocated remain a mystery, because the subsequent explanation on that page explains how it would work if all of the delegates were decided by the outcome of the primary, which is no longer the case.

Reading the actual rules, my interpretation is this:

155 total delegates.  It is 25% of those (38) that are chosen on a WTA basis at the state convention.

108 CD delegates elected based on the primary, 3 per each of the 36 CDs:
(a) Majority: Winner (3).
(b) Leader over 20%: Winner (2), Second (1)
(c) Nobody over 20%: Winner (1), Second (1), Third (1).

This leaves 3 slots for party leaders, and 6 at-large to be elected based on the primary.

It appears that the RPT rules assume that 25% of the delegates don't have to be based on the primary. But I can't find any such provision in the RNC rules.

Texas doesn't like proportional allocation of delegates, but was forced to use them because of an early primary. In 2012, when the primary was delayed until May, there was serious consideration to switching back to WTA.

[jimrtex]

If you want to try to compile the Republican delegate rules for each state, go here:

Texas: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/TX-R
The update given in 2014 says that of the state’s 152 delegates, 75% will be allocated based on the results of the primary, while the remaining 25% will be allocated WTA at the state party convention.  But the details of how those 75% will be allocated remain a mystery, because the subsequent explanation on that page explains how it would work if all of the delegates were decided by the outcome of the primary, which is no longer the case.

Reading the actual rules, my interpretation is this:

155 total delegates.  It is 25% of those (38) that are chosen on a WTA basis at the state convention.

108 CD delegates elected based on the primary, 3 per each of the 36 CDs:
(a) Majority: Winner (3).
(b) Leader over 20%: Winner (2), Second (1)
(c) Nobody over 20%: Winner (1), Second (1), Third (1).

This leaves 3 slots for party leaders, and 6 at-large to be elected based on the primary.

It appears that the RPT rules assume that 25% of the delegates don't have to be based on the primary. But I can't find any such provision in the RNC rules.

Texas doesn't like proportional allocation of delegates, but was forced to use them because of an early primary. In 2012, when the primary was delayed until May, there was serious consideration to switching back to WTA.

The RNC rejected the Texas GOP plan to award 25% of the delegates at the convention. All delegates will be allocated by the Primary

http://www.texasgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2014-Rules-as-amended-by-SREC-03.07.15-fixed-cd-06.18.15-with-RNC-Letter-on-Rule-38.pdf

(RNC letter to Texas GOP at the bottom of the PDF).

Thank you.  It is interesting that the RPT wrote the Rule 38(9)(c) in a way that permitted rejection by the RNC. Maybe there was an effort to secure a change in RNC rules to permit 25% of delegates to be elected in an non-proportional basis.

Note that in Texas all national delegates are chosen at the state convention. The RNC rules only require a delegate to stick with their candidate for a 1st ballot.

So the 44 at-large delegates will be allocated as follows:

Candidate with a majority: winner-take-all.
Multiple candidates above 20%: Proportional between those above 20%.
One above 20%: Proportional between 1st and 2nd place.
None above 20%: Proportional among all.

The filing deadline is in early December, and withdrawal has to be almost immediate.  So it is likely that there will be only a candidate or two above 20% (Cruz, Bush, Trump, Carson, Rubio).

Pataki, Gilmore, Christie, Graham will be at 0%.

Perry, Fiorina, Kasich, Walker, Jindal, Huckabee, Paul will be in single digits.

[jimrtex]

Iowa GOP Delegate allocation rules.

https://www.iowagop.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/RPI-Bylaws-Updated-2015.pdf

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The question then is what is meant by "Iowa Caucuses" since the bylaws don't really describe a full process.

The party constitution, CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF IOWA, describes both the precinct and congressional district stages as being "caucuses", while the county and state stages are "conventions". Further the constitution provides for the delegates to be chosen at the district caucuses.

[jimrtex]

Beginning to work through delegate allocation for both sides this year, and I noticed something a bit weird about the Democratic side:

The formula for the number of base number of delegates given to each state is given in the Call of the Convention (most recent version I could find is here)

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Where SDV represents the vote for the Democratic candidate in the given state in the given year, TDV represents the vote for the Democratic candidate nationwide in the given year, and SEV means the state's electoral vote.

Basically, this formula gives equal weight to total population (or its rough proxy in Electoral Votes) and number of Democrats (or its rough proxy in votes for Obama x 2 and Kerry).

Running the numbers and comparing them with the DNC's stated results (Appendix B of the call), the numbers seem a bit off, and not just due to rounding errors.  Some states are underrepresented by the DNC's calculation compared to the formula (TX by 11 delegates, FL by 5), while other states are overrepresented (Ohio by 5, NY/PA/MA by 4).

What seems to be going on here is that the DNC chose to use not the current EV figures, but the EV figures from 2004/2008!  This accounts for virtually all of the differences (apart from obvious rounding discrepancies and one oddity with NY which may be due to Fusion); note that in particular they are not averaging the EV counts over the last three elections, either.

Basically, the population weighting being done is on the basis of the outdated 2000 census, favoring the north and east over the south and west.

No one seems to have caught this so far; in particular, Texas (the state with the most to lose), goes along with the DNC's count in their delegate selection plan.

Blue states are overrepresented; red are underrepresented---this is essentially a map of which states lost or gained EVs in the 2010 reapportionment. 

It should be stressed this isn't a large effect: we're talking about 30-35 (base) pledged delegates here, or about 1% of the total.

Maybe they were arithmetically challenged.

If it were based on one election, they would use:

AF = 1/2 * ( (SDV/TDV) + (SEV/TEV) )

If you wanted to use multiple elections you would then use:

AF = 1/3 * (AF2012 + AF2008 + AF 2004)

Someone may have got confused when rearranging terms, and instead of:

AF = 1/2 * (1/3 * (SDV2012/TDV2012 + SDV2008/TDV2008 + SDV2004/TDV2004) )

decided to use their form which eliminates the 1/3 used to average the vote share. It is also possible that they wanted to weight the higher turnout elections heavier.

Since TEV is a constant, it doesn't matter which form they use, and may have even led them to cover up their actual calculation, such that you had to reverse engineer it from the Appendix.

[jimrtex]

Question for jimrtx, or anyone else who knows this stuff better than I do:

I was thinking about the longshot "no one finishes the primaries with a majority of delegates" scenario.  If you go to the Atlas's "results" page for the 2012 GOP primaries, Romney only has 51.3% of the delegates.  A whopping 29% are "unallocated".  Who are these unallocated delegates?  I'm assuming that some of them are the three party officials for each state, but also unbound delegates from caucus states, and unbound delegates from states like Pennsylvania which have wonky rules about delegate selection?

Given that the RNC now requires the straw poll results in caucus states to bind the votes of delegates in those states, I'm assuming that this "unallocated" number will be significantly smaller than 29% this time?  Any idea how much smaller?

And are these people likely to be pro-establishment candidates?  Or not?

I think the Atlas is wrong. Greenpapers shows a total of 2286 delegates. Atlas shows 2571 - and it is in the wrong column.

Further, I went through the individual states on the Atlas and found 496 delegates listed as unallocated. This is not too dissimilar to the shown in the Greenpapers. Greenpapers has more delegates pledged to Romney than Atlas. This may be a result of downstream pledges.

According to the Atlas, 17 states, AL, AZ, DE, FL, GA, ID, KS, MD, MI, NV, NH, NJ, ND, SC, UT, VT, and WI, pledged all their delegates. This might not be accurate. For example, Greenpapers, shows the 3 party officials in Alabama as uncommitted.

According to the Atlas, 18 states and 1 district, AR, AK, CA, CT, DC, HI, KY, MA, MS, NM, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, RI, SD, TN, AND VA, had 3 unpledged delegates, presumably the party officials.

I would expect these delegates to be very pro-establishment. They may have spent decades getting to their position.

All the delegates from 9 states, CO(36), IA(28), ME(24), MN(40), MO(52), MT(26), NE(35), PA(72), WA(40), and NE(35), total 353 were officially unpledged.

Most of these were from caucus states. In the Iowa precinct caucuses, Romney and Santorum were quite close in the straw poll, with Paul somewhat behind. By the time the state convention rolled around, most of the national delegates were Paul supporters. Formally, the precinct caucuses only elect delegates to the county convention, which in turn choose delegates to congressional district and state conventions. It was left up to the precinct conventions to determine how or if they would use the straw poll results. If it was 40-30-20 (Paul), the Paul supporters might suggest a 1-1-1 split of county delegates. If the Paul supporters dominated, they might propose their delegates as a slate. Some persons elected as county delegates might not show up, and alternate might take their place.

Of the 9 states, Greenpapers shows most of those from CO, MN, MO, NE, and WA as being hard delegates. This indicates that while they were not pledged on the basis of a caucus straw poll, they were pledged at a later level. These were pledged Romney 109, Paul 43, Santorum 22, and 19 unpledged. But the Minnesota delegation was 32 Paul, 2 Santorum. Colorado had 16 unpledged, 14 Romney, and 6 Santorum. On the floor vote, there were 8 abstentions. So it appears that there were at least 8 "Paul" delegates, but they weren't permitted to vote for Paul.

There were 6 states which had some unpledged delegates, IL(12), IND(16), LA(28), TX(6), WY(3), and WV(5). Those from Louisiana and Texas appear to be due to their allocation rules. Louisiana only allocated delegates to candidates who received more than 20%, but allocated unpledged delegates based on the total vote (eg if a candidate received 15% of the vote, he would not have any delegates, but "unpledged" would be awarded 15% of the delegates.

If the convention went multiple ballots, what you would likely find is that many of the "pledged" delegates may not be supporters of who they are pledged to. Texas delegates are chosen by the state convention. In Arkansas, delegates are chosen by special conventions after the primary. Delegate candidates can indicate who they support (they can even indicate multiple choices as long as they pay multiple filing fees), and presidential candidates may indicate their preferred candidates.

Looking over the Republican rules, the loophole of direct election of delegates still exists. Iowa Republicans had considered eliminating the straw poll, so they didn't have to allocate based on that, but they seem to have backed off on that. It's not clear whether the RNC rules require an initial poll at caucuses.

[jimrtex]

What's the story on the North Dakota Republican caucuses?  The Green Papers suggests that they've been cancelled?

This 2016 Presidential Nominating Process (PDF) (from RNC) indicates that the caucuses will be much more informal and held over several months.

North Dakota legislative districts are pretty small since there are few people in North Dakota and 47 districts (15,000 or so per district). By avoiding polling, they don't have to pledge delegates, who are directly elected at the state convention.

[jimrtex]

7:00 EST - Georgia, Texas, Vermont, Virginia
8:00 EST - Alabama, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee
8:30 EST - Arkansas

Nitpick here - Texas has one county in Mountain Time that closes polls at 8 ET. Networks typically wait for that before calling anything.

Nitnitpick. Closing time in Texas is 7:00 local time. So 7:00 CST for most of Texas, = 8:00 EST. El Paso and Hudspeth are on MST, and will close at 9:00 EST. The networks have never been concerned about waiting for an area with 3% of the vote before making a call.

[jimrtex]

Here's where I'm at with poll closing times for Super Tuesday.  Please tell me if I have any of these wrong (all times translated to Eastern time):

primaries:

7pm: GA, VT, VA
8pm: AL, MA, OK, TN
8:30pm: AR
8pm/9pm (depending on time zone): TX

caucuses:

7pm-midnight: AK
start at 8pm: MN
start at 9pm: CO

American Samoa

Texas should be moved to 7:00 PM EST. All but a few precincts close by then, and we should have a really good idea of what the final result there is with the information from the 7:00 PM portion of the state.

Here's the FAQ on the official site:

http://www.votetexas.gov/voting/

It says that the polls are open until 7pm.  But most of the state is in Central time, which means 8pm Eastern.  The El Paso region is in Mountain time, so those polls close at 7pm Mountain / 9pm Eastern.

Around half of votes cast are early voting, which ended on Friday. Though they will eventually be attributed back to the actual voting precinct, they will be reported almost instantly. Texas also permits mail ballots to be tabulated on election day, so they can also be reported almost instantly.

Note Texas refers to voting as either early voting or election day voting. Early voting can either be in person or by mail. Mail voting is only for cause: (1) age or disability; (2) absence from the county for the entire voting period; or (3) confinement in jail.

Early voting in person is conducted at early voting locations for the two weeks prior to the election - Monday of the 1st week to Friday of the 2nd week, including both Saturday and Sunday of the weekend between the weeks. However, this year, Monday the 15th was not used because of the President's Day Holiday.

In smaller counties, the early voting location will be the courthouse. In larger counties there will be locations throughout the county, and a voter can vote at any one of them. Harris County has around 50, and it has a relatively small number per its population.

Incidentally, early voting turnout looks bad for Sanders. The heaviest Democratic turnout was in Hidalgo County, where there is also an open congressional seat TX-15. I doubt that Sanders has a big operation there. Outside Hidalgo, El Paso, and Travis, most voters are choosing the Republican ballot - and this was extenuated as early voting period went on. Counties like Bexar, Dallas, and Nueces were pretty even at the start, but were shifting slightly Republican by the weekend. It appears to be a lot like South Carolina where the Republican primary, pulled out a lot of possible Sanders voters.

The Republican areas could be surging for Trump or Cruz. Montgomery County was over 9:1 for Republicans.

[jimrtex]

March 15 poll closing times:

Florida: 7pm ET in most of the state, but 8pm ET in the panhandle.
North Carolina: 7:30pm ET
Ohio: 7:30pm ET
Illinois: 8pm ET
Missouri: 8pm ET

Northern Mariana Islands Republican caucus: no idea

BTW, the USA, except Arizona, Hawaii, and some territories switches to DST on March 13.