How the Primaries Don’t Work, Colorado Edition

Get this, from the Denver Post:

Bernie Sanders won one more delegate in Colorado than first projected after the Colorado Democratic Party admitted this week that it misreported the March 1 caucus results from 10 precinct locations.

The error — first uncovered by The Denver Post — was shared with rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign by party officials but kept from Sanders until the Post told his staff Monday night. …

… The revelation that the state party misreported the results to the public March 1 — and kept it quiet to all but the Clinton campaign for five weeks — comes as Sanders promotes his case that he can win the Democratic nomination.

Let’s review. This story is dated April 12. The caucus was March 1. The Denver Post says the Clinton campaign and the state Dem Party knew about this for five weeks before the Denver Post informed Sanders.

The story is not clear when the Denver Post learned about it, but it suggests the Denver Post uncovered the error and shared it with the Clinton campaign and nobody else until yesterday. And that stinks, too.

The mistake is a minor shift with major implications. The new projection now shows the Vermont senator winning 39 delegates in Colorado, compared to 27 for Clinton.

Even if Clinton wins all 12 superdelegates in the state, Sanders can finish no worse than a split decision. It contrasts with prior projections from the Post, Bloomberg Politics and The Associated Press that indicated Clinton would probably win the majority of the 78 delegates in Colorado because of her support from party leaders with superdelegate status.

Yeah, and bleep the Democratic superdelegates. They shouldn’t exist.

The Colorado Republicans have a mystery system that resulted in a sweep for Ted Cruz. I’ve been trying to find out exactly how this happened and have yet to find a news story that explains it. It’s like shamans go to a sacred lake to receive visions.

Steve House, the chairman of the state’s Republican Party, is now sorry his cell phone number was made public.

The convoluted Nevada system potentially could give the state to Sanders, even though Clinton won more votes in the caucus. While I like that outcome I do question whether that’s a sensible way to choose a nominee. I’m hearing on the Web that something similar is happening in Missouri, although I found no corroboration for it in mainstream media.

The presidential primaries are more than just the marathon of hysteria, lies and spin we’ve come to loathe. They also are something of a sham; it’s increasingly obvious many states are set up to provide only an illusion of voter participation. It wasn’t that long ago that the parties chose the candidates in convention, of course. But if we’re going to go to a primary system for choosing presidential nominees, let’s go to a primary system. Let’s stop with this nonsense of holding what look like primaries but aren’t really.

The order in which states vote seems skewed to me, too. IMO the Democrats shouldn’t be allowing the Deep South to have so much power by voting first when you know those states are not going to help the Democrats in the Fall. Of course, the DNC knew this would help Hillary Clinton, so that’s how it was. If the situation had been reversed, the South would have voted last. This year’s system was set up to nominate Hillary Clinton, not to discover who the people want or who might have the best shot of taking the big blue states and “swing” states.