Romney projected winner of AZ; near tie so far in Michigan

[Guest EXPAT]

In watching CNN, they project Romney a winner in Arizona and he gets all of the delegates there.

For Michigan, they are very very close. With nearly 20% of the vote in Romney has 41% to Santorum's 39% in Michigan. But they have been going back and forth all night long so far. Lots of votes to still be counted in Michigan.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Romney won in Michigan so I guess he will be the nominee soon. Santorum is too angry and never going to appeal people.

[JKane]

Romney won in Michigan so I guess he will be the nominee soon. Santorum is too angry and never going to appeal people.

Which is why many on the left really wanted him to win.

[Guest EXPAT]

Getting so close will keep Santorum in the race longer. They will use up all of their money before the general election. I just can't see how anyone could beat Obama now. But I know once a candidate is selected at the convention that they will somehow forgive primary issues and support that candidate.

[JKane]

Yep, and they'll start saying even more despicable things *and* have a larger audience for it. So anything to lengthen their primaries is welcome! California's open primary will be interesting, as long as there's still a pretend race by then.

Still, hard to imagine many Californians going out of their way to touch Sanatorum...

[Guest EXPAT]

Yep, and they'll start saying even more despicable things *and* have a larger audience for it. So anything to lengthen their primaries is welcome! California's open primary will be interesting, as long as there's still a pretend race by then.

Still, hard to imagine many Californians going out of their way to touch Sanatorum...

Since when do we have an open primary? You have to declare your party and then you can only vote in that party's primary unless you change your party designation on your voter registration. Did something change that I'm not aware of?

[JKane]

I think it *just* did. Think one of the props did it or something... looking.

[JKane]

Here's the info on the change and the effect it has had so far locally.

Still looking for more on how it effects the presidential primary process.

[JKane]

Ah, this says that on the presidential level it's still business as usual. Decline to states can probably vote either ballot but those of us affiliated are stuck with our party. But statewide is entirely different...

http://cavotes.org/vote/primary

But I was given the impression it was now an open primary from an apparently mistaken national news story, so this will probably come up a couple more times!

[Guest EXPAT]

It seems that Romney and Santorum just split the delegates for Michigan evenly. This process seems so odd to me in this day and age. If we went to pure electronic voting we could just take real vote counts and call it a day instantaneously.

[AdamSmith]

If we went to pure electronic voting we could just take real vote counts and call it a day instantaneously.

If the mechanics of casting, recording and counting votes were ironclad and foolproof, sure. But just going electronic, with current technologies at least, hardly seems to guarantee any such. Indeed, some present-day systems (thanks a lot, Diebold et al.) appear to yield a much

sketchier audit trail than more archaic methods.

I don't like the distortions that the electoral-college system can produce. But it's worth remembering that the Framers conceived the federal election process with more than one backstop to, among other things, help the political process determine and express the will of the polis even in the face of some uncertainty in ascertaining the popular vote.

[Guest CharliePS]

"Open primary" is a confusing term, because it means different things in different places. In Michigan (and some other states), it meant that one didn't have to be a registered party member to vote in the party primary; Democrats could vote in the Republican primary, if they wished, and vice versa. In California (and some other states), what it means is that there is no party primary: all candidates, regardless of party, run together in the primary for state and Congressional offices, and all voters, regardless of party, vote for whichever candidate they want. The top two winners move on to the general election. As a result, two candidates from the same party can end up facing one another in the general election if they are the top two vote-getters in the primary for that office. However, the Presidential primary was not included in the state proposition that set up this new system in California, so there will be separate Republican and Democratic primaries for President, and only registered voters of the appropriate party will be allowed to vote in them.

[Lucky]

My niece lives in Michigan. She said she had to declare a party at the polls. So, Democrats may be able to vote in the Republican primary, but they have to declare Republican to do so.

I told her that is she or her handsome but too conservative husband voted for Santorum, I would never speak to them again. She declined to tell me who they voted for, but did say that I could speak to them again, meaning they didn't vote for Santorum.

[JKane]

My niece lives in Michigan. She said she had to declare a party at the polls. So, Democrats may be able to vote in the Republican primary, but they have to declare Republican to do so.[...]

You basically have to tell them what ballot to give you, including a non-partisian choice (just the non-partisan candidates such as judges, etc), it doesn't change your voter registration.

Another interesting point of party affiliation is all those registered with the White Supremacist-leaning American INDEPENDENT Party when what they meant to choose was Decline To State.