slate sez: "hooray" - for the first time, the DC primaries "matter", in that they could tip the balance to obama.

and (wow) - for the first time 2 legitimate states - florida and michigan - don't matter, in that their delegates have been declared "illegal" and the voters in those states effectively disenfranchised. is there no "hooray" applicable here, because those delegates would vote for hillary, if seated?

and lets not forget to give a cheer (in advance) for the delegates from guam, puerto rico, the US virgin islands and god knows what other regions which can't actually vote for president, but whose primaries and delegates will constrain the choice of nominees for real voters.

isn't it just a teensy bit undemocratic to count the primary results of "non-states", while disenfranchising several huge, actual states, ones with pressing problems such as unemployment, tax fairness issues, crime, and drugs?

welcome to the democratic primaries, where no matter which candidate you boost (or boo), there's an arcane rule to reduce the role of legitimate voters.

Not to challenge your point about Fla. and Mich., but one point of clarification.

DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. actually DO vote for president. Each district receives the same number of electors in the electoral congress as they would receive if they were states. That is, three each.

I always found the Democratic primaries interesting, because as an Independent living in DC, I can't vote to select a candidate they will want me to vote for a few months down the line. Then they'll rely on focus groups to determine what I want as it gets closer to November. I'm aware of the other states where you can vote in one or both primaries as an Independent, but it always seemed strange to me that this information is not captured and represented in some way at the polls. It would be interesting to note if Candidate A, for example, got a large amount of support from Independents but moderate support from Party loyalists, and Candidate B got no support from Independents but overwhelming support from Party loyalists.

wikipedia, cnn, and other sources show no tallies for president by any guam, puerto rico, US virgin islands, etc.

remember, you can only vote for presidnet if you're a US citizen, I believe

for guam. <link>

it says that while guam held an election on november 2, 2004, its votes didn't count.

footnote - guam went for bush 64% over kerry

puerto rico did not hold a mock 2004 for the president <link>

apparently the US virgin island's didn't either <link>

Whoa, my bad. I was working from (perceived?) memory of a network "big board" in one of the previous elections, and thought that the US territories had the same electoral standing as DC. Wrong.

DC gets 3 electoral votes due to the 23rd amendment, but not the territories.

However, from some rudimentary web searching, it does appear that at least Puerto Ricans are considered US citizens, and aren't considered "immigrants" when they move to the mainland. Does anyone know the status of the other territories' people?

I'd think they'd be considered citizens too, but now I'm not so sure.