I care about the results. Primarily because people who care enough to vote did so. I take offense at your dismissive attitude to them. Should they have just burned their ballots upon receipt?

I also care about the results because 3 times the number of caucus voters responded to the primary and the result was significantly different. I would think an intellectually curious -- versus intellectually doctrinaire -- op-ed writer might tease out the myriad reasons for this result. Maybe question whether the caucus system was the best for uncovering the true will of Washington voters, etc.

But I guess not. Anyway, it's nice to see that 400,000+ voters had a chance to weigh in, "pointless" thought it may be, Maybe I'm the only one, but I thank them for engaging in democracy and will hold back on throwing shade.

@1: fukken brutal

Ack - 400,000 plus more voters than the caucuses.

I know I, a Sanders supporter, participated in the Democratic caucuses, but I didn't mail in my primary ballot because, well, why should I waste the stamp? I wonder how many participated in both.

@1, I care, too, and I find it fascinating that the results are so different. I think The Stranger does, too, as they have made two posts about it, both referencing what's interesting about the outcome. But Slog has been making the point recently that we as a state probably shouldn't be paying for a primary that doesn't affect the outcome of the primary race. Indeed, it doesn't even seem to be affecting the narrative about the race (currently, the results do not show up on the front page of CNN, etc., and even typing in "Clinton" into a Google News search -- which is much more than most people will do -- reveals nothing about our primary results). Your comments about why the primary results matter, and this post's assertions about the primary (when considered alongside their recent narrative) aren't in disagreement.

"2) They undermine the idea that Washington voters are overwhelmingly pro-Bernie Sanders"

What a dumb statement. Bernie won big because "the voters" caucused.

If the vote was binding, Bernie supporters would've bothered, but it wasn't, and it didn't matter. I still threw in my ballot because i'm anal-retentive like that, but my spouse didn't bother and I can't blame them.

@4: I caucused for Hillary and did not waste a stamp on the primary, either. Individual cases do not statistics make, but here's mine to balance yours anyway :)

@6 You do realize you're implying that Bernie voters strategize while Hillary voters don't, right? Like...Bernie voters voted in the caucus and not the primary because it's only the caucus that counts, but LOL HILLARY VOTERS ARE SO DUMB AMIRITE and got it BACKWARDS?!

Or maybe, when only the small fraction of the population that is made up of the most politically involved and motivated citizens are considered (i.e. the ones that caucus), they are much more likely to be supporters of Sanders. Since it's more than just the aforementioned small fraction of Washingtonians that vote in the general, the primary (over a caucus) is much more representative of who voters support. Unless, of course, Bernie voters SMRT, hillary voters DUMM.

I didn't vote because, here in lovely Spokane County anyway, you had to check the box for party affiliation, and said box was on the outside of the outer envelope, i.e. visible to anyone along with your full name and home address. I didn't feel safe doing that.

@6: Your pronoun at the end of your comment is a typo or quite revealing.

@5 -- I hear you. My point of view is that we should bag the caucus and go mail-in primary, since that attracts the most people and is less obstructive to people who cannot carve out a bunch of time on caucus day or who just plain want to cast a vote and not engage in #caucusdrama

I swear to God if Bernie had won the primary or Hillary, I would have the same opinion. Make it easy, keep it simple, get the most people into the game. #WAprimary

I caucused for Bernie and didn't mail in my ballot because I didn't see the point. There's something vaguely totalitarian about a meaningless election... kind of like a show trial.

Pointless state primary? Bullshit. The vote that I made means that 44 delegates will be going for Donald Trump. And the added awesomeness is that 44. members of the Ted Cruz suicide cult will have to pay $4,000 plus hotel and airfare in order to vote for Trump in Cleveland per party rules.

It's fucking awesome.

As for you guys? Fix your fucking party, Democrats.

The voters that self selected in that they either didn't know that their primary ballot didn't "count" or didn't care vs. those that found the time to participate in caucus strike me as likely more representative of the general election voters, so yeah, as a Hillary caucus participant that didn't bother mail in my ballot, I see the result as significant. But only as an analog. What that really long sentence highlights for me is how stratified the caucus participants were. The general result will drive that point home, the caucuses yielded a poor result. They are a barrier to participation and bad for democracy. Have a book club meeting if you really want to have a discussion.

I guess the WA Democratic Party doesn't like the primary system because they lose a modicum of control. Didn't we give some delegates via caucus and some via the primary a few elections ago? It seems like a decent compromise to get more people involved.

"Bernie won big because "the voters" caucused."

Oh my, undead ayn rand. I would have thought you'd be better at math given all that meritocracy nonsense. You are, however, correct to put "the voters" in quotes. The rest of us, the unclean quoteless and majority who support Clinton, have simply given up trying to reason with most of those who attend these patently undemocratic and sanctimonious clusterfucks, where pretty much the same people gather every four years to moon over pretty much the same lefty dreamboat peter pan they went all Beatlemania over last time. The one who never wins. I'd rather pay for a stamp. Hopefully it will actually count some time in the future.

This is the only state I've lived in that uses a delegate caucus over your average way of voting, and I 've been on both coasts and the midwest. I didn't feel Obama was as much of an underdog as Sanders is now when I went to the 2008 caucus. It could have gone to Clinton just as easy. I'm voting for whoever is NOT-GOP. *notslytherinnotslytherin*

Bernie supporters can no longer complain about Hillary superdelegates not representing the will of the people.

Hmmmm this doesn't bode well for Bernie in California.

So on the one hand, the caucuses are unfair to the working people who can't show up and spend all day with a bunch of annoying people participating in a byzantine process, but one the other hand those same working people, given the chance to vote entirely at their leisure, and needing only to scrape together the cost of a stamp, can't be trusted to vote for the right candidate?

I think it's time to retire the caucus and just have the primary. I don't say that lightly, because I used to love the Iowa caucus, but it's become part of the problem.

@10 - While my grammatical indoctrination still cringes at it, the informal use of "them" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun has more or less officially gained formal approval. It certainly makes it easier when referring to those outside of binary gender norms. Yeah, it makes it hard to discern whether a speaker is referring to an individual or a group, but there are advantages.

Not to say that's what Undead Ayn Rand is doing, but I think your pedantry reveals more about you than any pronoun in @6.

What this shows, more than anything, is that the caucus system is horribly undemocratic. Like most people, I recycled my ballot (sorry, #1, I didn't burn it). Why bother with a symbolic vote? That is like participating in a non-scientific poll.

Everyone I know did the same thing. Some participated in the caucus, some didn't (they had other concerns that day). Yet more people participated in this meaningless straw poll of a primary, than voted in the caucus! What is surprising is not how many people bothered to send in a ballot, but how few made it out to the caucus. We should get rid of the caucus, and move to a primary.

@21, does the fact that the results are effectively meaningless enter into your assessment at all? I'm pretty sure a lot more people (supporters of both candidates) would have voted if the results of this primary had any impact.

I agree, by the way, that we should switch to primaries. I just don't think it's fair to use the results of this primary to characterize Bernie supporters as lazy. If they didn't turn out in a meaningful primary, that would be a different thing altogether.

@10 and @22, not to mention its intention is to be less "revealing," like "Ms." For myself anyway, I consider it rude to push at someone using "them" or "partner, rather than something more definitive;" I figure they have their reasons.

Caucus = The most retarded way to have a primary!

@ 30, There's also the fact that we were told correctly for months that this primary was meaningless, a waste of tax dollars, and that we shouldn't bother voting, so (shock) a lot of well-informed people didn't, which obviously skewed the results. I did, but I'm a compulsive voter. That people are now spinning this as a Clinton win is purely dishonest and intentionally deceptive--just like her campaign.

@27 You're a fucking idiot. Washington has no formal party registration. You were allowed to vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary, you just had to check a box indicating which one, because you aren't allowed to vote in both. People like you are why Washington is so fucked, a douche-bag collection of "radical" "leftwing" pagans who can't get their fucking act together well enough to pass a fucking income tax.

This is sick burn (bern?) on Bernie either way. Either concede that your sacred win in WA was bullshit and Hillary is crushing it even in the gluten free haven of Canada-envy turned to 11 or admit that their is no suck thing as an "enthusiasm gap" in the Democratic race. Hillary supporters so psyched they are buying fucking stamps and shit!

Also... why doesn't your douche-bag state pay for stamps so you can have a fucking election? I mean I'm glad your regressive ass sales taxes isn't buying Whole Foods shoppers fucking postage stamps, but still y'all!

Even if we assume every Sanders support who participated in the caucus stayed home for the primary, but that every Clinton supporter who participated in the caucus also participated in the primary. Given the estimated number of caucus goers (230,000) and primary voters (662,100), there would be at most 474,292 Sanders supporters in Washington (57.2%) and 355,018 Clinton supporters (42.8%), which is rather different than the 72.7% to 27.1% than the caucuses suggested.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you look up @31, you'll observe a perfect specimen of hillarybro in it's native habitat.

@28: Sanders diehards STILL don't have a counterargument to this!

It wasn't "Pointless" when it was a Caucus. Idiots saying things like "The voters have spoken", "bernie won", "follow the will of the people". Stupid Fuckers. Well, the people of Washington have spoken. And, in larger more meaningful numbers than the "caucus" vote. 19,000 votes is not the will of the people as a lot of bernouts proclaimed the day after the caucus.

Well, then the Primary happened. Are the bernouts of Washington state saying "Follow the will of the people" now?

Huh!, What?, I can't hear you bernouts. Ha-Ha!

A WHOLE LOT MORE people voted in the primary than in the caucus. And "The People" chose Clinton. Not by much. But a win is a win.

So what sat you bernouts? Are you going to "Follow The Will of The People" as you're fond of saying. Or, are you just gonna sit back and sulk. And be a Hypocrite?