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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Huge Turnouts for Wyoming Dem Caucuses Today; Results

First off, you should be aware that Obama won Texas in that he won the most delegates. Now, on to Wyoming: CNN results, updated as votes come in. Updated 3/09/08 (final):

Race
Candidate
State Del.*
%
Del*
Pcts
Wyoming

5,378
61%
7
100%
reporting
3,312
38%
4
Uncommitted
63
1%
0

The caucuses in counties around the state have various start times throughout the day. Twelve pledged delegates are at stake. This diary on Kos has the nitty gritty on how the delegates relate to the CNN numbers and will have genuine delegate results. According to Yahoo news:

Sen. Barack Obama took the lead over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in early returns as Democrats deluged caucuses in Wyoming Saturday, straining the ability of party officials to accommodate crowds. Obama led Clinton 57 percent to 40 percent with 6 of 23 counties reporting as they vied for the next prize in their extraordinarily tight Democratic presidential nomination race. During the first caucuses of the day, it appeared the state's Democrats were showing up in record numbers. In 2004, a mere 675 people statewide took part in the caucuses

In Sweetwater County, more than 500 people crowded into a high school auditorium and another 500 were lined up to get inside.

"I'm worried about where we're going to put them all. But I guess everybody's got the same problem," said Joyce Corcoran, a local party official. "So far we're OK. But man, they keep coming."

Party officials were struggling with how to handle the overflow crowds. The start of the Converse County caucus was delayed due to long lines.

In Cheyenne, scores of late arrivers were turned away when party officials stopped allowing people to get in line at 11 a.m. EST. A party worker stood at the end of the line with a sign reading, "End of the line. Caucus rules require the voter registration process to be closed at this time."

Vera Double, 71, said she arrived late because she had a hard time finding parking.

"I'm so proud to see there are this many Democrats showing up in Cheyenne, but I'm very disappointed in the rules because we had difficulty parking and we had a long walk and they closed it off at 9 (a.m. MST)," she said. "I consider it — we're disenfranchised, which they've done in other parts of the country."

March 8, 2008 at 12:12 PM in 2008 Presidential Primary | Permalink

Comments

Why aren't the talking heads mentioning that Hillary's win in the Texas primary included many Repubs, who were encouraged to vote for her by Rush Limbaugh and the Texas Repub party? Now I hear some of them are complaining because they didn't realize that voting in the Dem. primary for President kept them from voting for any other Repubs in the Primary. Is the Texas Caucus (which Obama won) closed, or could these Repubs have voted there too? Many other states apparently have open primaries or allow re-registration close to election day -- where is the effect of this being discussed?

Posted by: Michelle Meaders | Mar 10, 2008 10:39:25 AM

Similar stories in the news in Ohio:

Posted by: <> | Mar 10, 2008 11:27:12 AM

Thanks for the link to the article from the Cleveland paper about Ohio's crossover voting. Interesting that there wasn't any mention in it of Kucinich's House race, where he said his Dem opponent was put up by the Repubs.

Posted by: Michelle Meaders | Mar 11, 2008 12:40:23 PM

I forgot to say that this newspaper endorsed his main opponent at least twice:

Kucinich Faces Tough Fight In Home District
by The Associated Press
Posted: March 3, 2008 - 7:30 am ET

"City Councilman Joe Cimperman, once a Kucinich admirer, has raised nearly $500,000 and landed high-profile endorsements from the mayor and the city's daily newspaper in a feisty campaign heading into Tuesday's Democratic primary."

Posted by: Michelle Meaders | Mar 11, 2008 12:53:27 PM

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