Calls today being raised by prominent Democrats to close the primary process and discontinue the debates.
Nate Silver at 538 now says the probability of Biden victory over Bernie is in excess of 99%. From a party perspective, I can see reason to allow Biden to relax a bit, move on, focus on his opponent in November, and be free of “friendly” attacks from a “Democrat socialist” who is not officially even a member of the Democrat party!
What do Democrats really owe Bernie? California is already in the bag for them. Where else will absence of the Bernie vote be determinative, swinging a state to the other side?
Other than her wide brushes with the truth about her heritage and her reason for quitting teaching, she seemed like a fairly straight shooter and it seemed like she believed what she spouted. I’m disappointed in her, or my judgement of her … or both.
As for Washington, last I heard Biden was ahead by a whisker.
Clearly they need to count more votes from western Washington.
ETA
I always figured Washington was a modestly sophisticated state. Nope. This is from yesterday’s Seattle Times:
Hundreds of thousands of ballots remain to be counted, with a larger tally expected Thursday, but the trend so far is a sign of momentum for Biden, who has consolidated support among late-deciding voters.
There were 13 Democrats on Washington’s ballot and about one-third of the votes so far have gone to candidates who dropped out of the race before Tuesday. As of Wednesday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren placed third in Washington’s vote, with about 11%; billionaire ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was close behind with 10%, followed by former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 5%.
So no wonder there is confusion. The ballot was messed up and people were voting for candidates no longer in the running!!
And just think of all those Warren votes which might have gone Bernie’s way had voters been aware Warren was out.
I don’t know the schedule in Washington, but is it possible that the ballots were mailed in before the candidates dropped out? I know that happened in California, because early voting started… early.
Yes, mailer voting did start very early in WA. I dropped off my ballot in a dropbox end of Feb, before any of the top 5 candidates had dropped out. I didn’t vote for any of the dropped candidates though, so my vote actually did count for something…
Apparently there were quite a few voters that actually checked both the Democrat and Republican box, where the instructions and signature present that you can only vote for one party for it to count. Some people can’t follow instructions I guess. WA polling is attempting to reach out to those individuals to cast a valid re-vote so they are not thrown out.
I disagree with this. Why should you get the opportunity to re-vote for one of the remaining candidates, while I followed directions and remain stuck with my vote for (whoever has dropped out)? A do-over is essentially being given a second vote.
Actually, let me correct my statement. For those who incorrectly marked both parties I think they are just giving them the option to clarify whether they are voting democrat or republican for their selected candidate.
Yes, which is why when someone marks both parties it invalidates their vote. They can only designate themself with and vote for one party. WA’s attempt to fix those errors is part of the reason it is taking as long as it is to tally votes.
But scripta is right. If you opt, for example, to vote in the Democrat primary you should not even be handed a Republican ballot!!! And of course vice versa.
I was too when “open primary” was first explained to me. In some states, you can vote in either party’s primary, regardless of which party you are registered. However, you are only allowed to vote in one of them.
As it should. Why should the taxpayers have to pay for their own error, unless the ballot was worded in such a way as to be deceptive? I consider voting to be as much a responsibility as a right. If I can’t take the time to vote correctly, or inquire if confused, why should the state be my nanny?
Again this is predicated on the ballot being understandable to each vc.
Whether or not a primary is “open” varies by state. There are a number of different arrangements, and the complexity is too high for me to detail here. However, a full exposition of the matter is available if you click on this:
WA state has a privacy envelope where you select your party. It then has the inner ballot that lists both parties and all running candidates for both parties. You slect one nominee. You are instructed to only vote for one party or the other and also fill the party circle correspondingly on the privacy envelope. These are then placed in a final outer envelope for mail or to be placed in a drop off location.
It shouldn’t be terribly confusing for WA state voters to follow these instructions but that is assuming a certain level of literacy and critical thinking skills.
I never knew for sure, and didn’t take the time to look it up.