Politics for Dummies
 

Question of the day: What/Who are delegates, what is their purpose, and do they matter? Are they congressmen? *confused*

Sorry if this is a silly question, but after looking it up online I can't really come up with a definitive answer. I noticed that on the election results yesterday, there was a column for "Delegates", and then score-keeping next to each candidate. (Some had 3 or 4, some had 0)

So....can someone educate me? :coffee2

*BUMP*

We don't actually elect a President in the US. We elect delegates to an Electorial College and those electorates are then those who physically elect the President. This is why large states are called "crucial" - states like Pennsylvania and California.

I do understand the electoral vote...but is that the same as the "delegates" in the primaries?

Okay, so here is what I'm asking about specifically:

http://election.cbsnews.com/campaign...shtml?state=IA

In the democratic column, it looks like this:

Obama - 38% - 940 votes - 16 del.
Edwards - 30% - 744 votes - 14 del.
Clinton - 29% - 737 votes - 15 del.


The Republican side looks like this:

Huckabee - 34% - 39,814 votes - 30 del.
Romney - 25% - 29,405 votes - 7 del.
Thompson - 13% - 15,521 votes - 0 del.


So....who are the "del.", what do they mean, what is their significance, are they the same as or similar to the electoral vote, and in the actual vote numbers...are those the actual vote numbers? As in the number of people who showed up to vote? And why such a huge number of votes for the GOP, and such small numbers for the democrats?

I think those are delegates in the Iowa Caucuses.

(Is that spelled right?)

I think it is the same thing, they all went to Des Moines and placed votes for their champions. Many people including Guiliani did not even go to Iowa.

Thanks Boomm, for at least TRYING to answer my questions, which obviously NO ONE ELSE in the forum even CARES to attempt. :sad:depressed:nobodycares:tissue:girlfriend

So maybe the delegate votes are the votes cast by congressmen?

No these are the delegate votes by those at the caucus or at the convention.

Legally, we SHOULD allow congress and the House to elect the President. The easiest way to make change was to remove the House every two years- since the HOUSE sets the rules of paying the bills. At some point the Imperial Presidency and the Supreme Courts instead upset this balance.

"Somebody's Gotta Say It" by Neal Boortz has interesting insight into how few even attempt to THINK about what matters today.

Also we have seen many not using more than The Fellowship Hall for subjects.

Very rarely in here....

No delegates are private citizens elected to their post within their party.

Think of primary- as mini-election at the party state level. Delegates of the party.

Think of election- as members of electoral college. More like delegates at large. As individuals they should cast there vote according to the neighborhood/area of the state where they live (according to national election results) regardless of their personal political association

Electoral- interesting thing. They are not really "bound" by the vote in their state but remarkably they do invariably complete their duty as they should

Hope this helps.

Or at least did not make it worse.