Has anyone noticed that the pledged delegate totals on the Obama website differ from the those on the DKos front page (which are obtained from DemConWatch, which gets the numbers from The Green Papers). The Obama campaign claims three more delegates than DCW and GP show, one each in Lousiana, Texas, and Washington.
The reason Obama does not get "official" credit for these delegates is because of missing data. It's likely that a few people are holding it close to the vest. Also, DCW even suggests that "something fishy" may be going on in Lousiana.
The challenge for us is to use our collective detective work to pry this data loose. By doing this, we could nail down 1, 2 or even 3 more pledged delegates in the "official" count for Obama.
DemConWatch says there is good reason to believe that the Obama count could be right in all three cases.
According to a May 1 post on DemConWatch, there is good reason to believe that the Obama count could be right in all three of these cases.
Here is where the discrepancies lie:
| State: | Obama Campaign | DCW/GP | Possible Obama Pick-up |
| Louisiana | 34-22 | 33-23 | +1 |
| Texas | 38-29 | 37-30 | +1 |
| Washington | 53-25 | 52-26 | +1 |
From DemConWatch:
LA: GP suggest 33:23 due to official source, Obama has it 34:22; the official source can't explain why they have one more delegate for Clinton in CD2, also they don't give the final numbers CD-by-CD; IMHO - something fishy, probably the campaign has filed an appeal and that is why [the Obama campaign is sticking] with the correct (IMHO) 34:22 result.
TX: caucus results are still not final so both sources have different projection - campaign has 99:94, GP has 98:95 (more probable if the race is not over before June 7th)
WA: again different projections GP has 52:26, Obama campaign has 53:25; our experts here found that at-large and PLEOs in the state are not allocated based on popular vote, they are chosen by the CD pledged delegates; that makes 53:25 impossible projection and most probable projections are 52:26 and 54:24 (less probable); I am making attempts to find all LD conventions results and predict the outcome of the CD conventions, but results are very hard to obtain...
This calls for some sleuthing by people on the ground in Louisiana, Texas, and Washington.
In Louisiana, we need to find out the final vote tally in CD2. This will determine whether one of the CD2 pledged delegates that is now counted for Clinton should really be for Obama. Right now the count DCW count shows CD-2 at Obama 3, Clinton 2. It might really be 4-1. Also, we need to know if the Obama campaign has in fact filed an appeal.
Texas has a 3-tier system of conventions to determine the split of caucus delegates. The State (Tier 3) Convention on June 7 will identify the persons who will be the 67 caucus-chosen delegates. In Texas, we need the final caucus results coming out of the County and Senate District (Tier 2) Conventions that were held on March 29. This will help determine if the split will be 38-29 (as the Obama campaign says) or 37-30. Green Papers bases their estimated 37-30 split based on incomplete numbers from Burnt Orange Report:
Here is how we estimate the STATEWIDE delegate count (based on partial and unofficial results of the 30 March 2008 County Conventions from Burnt Orange Report as of 7 April 2008 with 93.90% of the delegate's presidential preferences indicated):
In the end we will know the final split in Texas on June 7:
Friday 6 June - Saturday 7 June 2008: The State Convention will choose the remaining 67 pledged delegates. ... 67 delegates are to be allocated to presidential contenders based on the presidential preference of the delegates at the State Convention as a whole.
42 at-large National Convention delegates
25 Pledged PLEOs
Washington also has a three-tier caucus system to select national delegates. There are 17 at-large and 10 PLEO (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) delegates to be chosen at the State Convention on Saturday, June 15. These are all part of the 78 national delegates that were at stake on February in the Washington caucuses.
In order to predict how these 27 will be split, we would need all the Legislative District (LD) caucus results from April 19. Apparently these LD caucus-chosen delegates make up something called the Election Committee, and it is this committee who will choose the final 27 national pledged delegates on June 15:
Sunday 15 June 2008: State Convention. The delegates to the Election Committee choose the remaining delegates to the National Convention. 27 pledged delegates are to be allocated to presidential contenders based on the presidential preferences of the Election Committee as a whole. ...
17 at-large National Convention delegates
10 Pledged PLEOs
Can anyone in the great state of Washington help out here? Even if you could find out the results of just one of the LD caucuses from April 19, that would help.
Your Instructions
Detectives, please post your clues in the comments below (bookmark this diary so you can find it later). Also, you should post any good information directly to this site for the nice people at DemConWatch.
OK, detectives, get going, and remember, let's be careful out there!
P.S.: You might also notice that the "official" count includes an extra delegate from Maryland for Obama that Obama's website does not show. This is because yesterday a pledged Clinton delegate flipped to Obama!
Cross posted at Daily Kos.
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