The 2024 Election season has begun in the United States in earnest, with the carrying on of the Iowa Caucuses. Now the fact that this happened on Monday 15th, is an indication that although Horse is not the fastest breaking news service, it is one of the more careful. This then is not exactly new news but old news or perhaps to be more precise olds.
For reference, since the "Do Your Own Research" brigade don't actually believe when you do provide any kind of facts which run counter to their weird kind of insane narrative, I have taken all statistics from the Iowa State Government's own website.
https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterreg/regstat.html
2,083,979 - This is the number of registered voters in Iowa.
I found this to be interesting. In the 2020 Census, there were 3,190,369 people in Iowa and of those 2,192,686 were over the age of 18. This means that there are at least 108,707 people missing from the electoral rolls and if we use the 2020 figures as static, then 4.9% of people who were over the age of 18 were not on the electoral roll. Usually when you talk about statistical deviance which would be then deem the survey as unreliable, the margin of error is about 2%. This is already more than double that.
It is safe to say that in Iowa, a full 1 in 20 people are disenfranchised, either because they do not know how to engage with the political system or refuse to out of hand. If 1 in 20 people died because of a pandemic, then that would be usually deemed to be unacceptable and measures would be taken to prevent this but given that the United States from 5th July 1776 has repeatedly confirmed that it abjectly does not hold the truths to be self evident, has repeatedly proven that all men are not created equal, that unalienable Rights are indeed alienable, and that Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are really only available for the few, then disenfranchising people before you even begin seems to be completely expected.
718,901 - This is the number of registered Republican voters in Iowa.
One of the consequences of having two very very big political machines in the United States, is that they are so very very big that they very very much are able to control public policy by diktat. In 1968, The Democratic Party which had been the party of Kennedy and Johnson, now found that the ongoing war in Vietnam was so abhorrent to the electorate at large, that the Democratic Party's National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, became the site of antiwar protesters. These protesters were then brutally attacked by the Police and the whole thing descended into riots. After the smoke cleared and the DNC got on conventioning, the then Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine were nominated for President and Vice President, respectively.
This left such a scar on the machinery of politics in the United States that both machines decided to hold more open primaries; so what we have now is a bad fix to a problem. The whole voting machinery now requires voters to register for one side or the other, or some hitherto unelectable party.
109,214 - This is the number of registered Republican voters who bothered to show up at the caucuses in Iowa.
In Iowa, in January, it is cold. As I write this, it is 5:40PM Sydney time and 12:40AM in Iowa. It is also -19°C in Des Moines.
It is little wonder that if you have to go out in temperatures which do not even exist in my country, that only 15% of people can actually be bothered. Quite frankly with such an environmental barrier to voting, I am amazed that a hundred thousand people actually left their homes for this. The caucuses are not a simple matter of putting a chit in a ballot box but involve going to a big hall and running around the room and forming clumps by way of support for a candidate.
56,260 - This is the number of registered Republican voters who caucused for Donald Trump in Iowa.
These are the people who braved actual freezing conditions, to go and stand in a room, to show support for Donald Trump in Iowa. Maybe these Iowans are particularly enthused at the idea of a second Trump Presidency, or maybe they like the idea of going to a big hall and running around the room and forming clumps as a means of free exercise instead of a gym membership to stop from freezing to death.
So then, what do we get after all of this?
51.51% - This is the percentage of actual caucused votes for Donald Trump in Iowa.
This is the headline number which the various media companies with trumpet from the rooftops as if Donald Trump was having a Roman Triumph. However the really scary and sad truth is the following number.
2.6% - This is the percentage of registered voters who caucused for Donald Trump in Iowa.
This is insanity.
In terms of actual popularity, then Donald Trump is statistically less popular than either missing from the electoral rolls, or refusing to register.
I live in a country where it is the duty of every elector to vote at each election; which means that voting is compulsory. Also, as we have preferential voting, then every single one of the candidates who could have appeared in these caucuses, for not just both sides but all sides, could actually appear on the same ballot paper. This would mechanically negate the need for the existence of the primaries entirely.
Having someone endorsed as the prime nominee for anything with only 2.6% of the electorate is hardly democracy. If there was any proof that the United States' voting system was utterly stupid at every step of the process then this is it.
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