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Argument: Complicated US primaries lead to misleading vote counts

Issue Report: Primaries in US elections

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Take the recent Nevada Democratic caucus, in which Sen. Hillary Clinton took 51 percent of the popular vote to Sen. Barack Obama’s 45 percent.
The media, including the Chicago Tribune, billed it as a victory for Clinton. But because of the way delegates are apportioned in Nevada, Obama ended up with 13 delegates — or ‘delegate equivalents,’ as they are called — to Clinton’s 12.
Both of these numbers are estimates of how many delegates each candidate will end up with when Nevada Democrats hold their state convention and elect delegates to the Democratic National Convention.”