Navigating California's Labyrinthine Primary Rules

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

It's entirely possible that the vote count and the delegate count tonight could point in two different directions for the Democrats. We're going to try to understand why using the California primary as an example. California has the biggest delegate prize by far: 441 Democratic delegates.

Bruce Cain is a political science professor at UC Berkeley.

And Professor Cain, about half of those delegates, a little more than half are going to be awarded proportionally based on the vote in each individual congressional district. Explain how that works for us.

Professor BRUCE CAIN (Political Science, UC Berkeley): There's a difference between the odd and even seats. For example, in the three-delegate congressional districts, the candidate that gets a simple plurality, that is, wins by, say, one percentage point or less will get two delegates and the one who loses gets one. So you don't have to get very much of a margin - just any margin will do and you'll get an advantage in those three delegate seats.

BLOCK: What happens in districts that have an even number of delegates, say four or six delegates?

Prof. CAIN: Most often, they're going to just split two-to-two or three-to-three unless one candidate can get 60 to 70 percent of the vote. So most often, if the race is very close statewide, you're going to get a very even split of the delegates. Somebody is going to have to get a very big margin. In the six-delegate seat, you got to get at least 60 percent to get a four-to-two split. And in the four-delegate seats, you need to get 75 percent of the vote to a get a three-to-one split. So basically, our prediction should be then in a lot of those areas that have even numbers of delegates, unless one candidate is blowing out the other candidate, you're going to split them evenly. Whereas in the odd seats, any slight advantage in vote totals will give you a bonus delegate.

BLOCK: Apart from the delegates that are allocated by congressional district, there are also about 30 percent of the total in California that are going to be allocated based on the primary vote statewide. How does that work?

Prof. CAIN: Well, that works again with the proportionality formula. And so for every one-point advantage that a candidate has over the other one, it's going to translate into about a 1.3 advantage in delegate. So even a fairly large victory is not going to swing a large number of delegates to one candidate versus the other.

BLOCK: Does it seem likely to you, Professor Cain, that you could be looking at a result after tonight's vote in California where one candidate clearly won the popular vote and the other candidate seems to have gotten more delegates?

Prof. CAIN: It can happen. And it can happen if the statewide race is extremely close. The possibility is that statewide, Hillary could do very well in some of the suburban and rural areas but not so well in the inner city areas. And therefore, the delegate allocation could favor Obama whereas the statewide vote total could favor Hillary.

Now, will it happen? Well, it can happen. But it really is predicated on a very close statewide vote.

BLOCK: Well, Professor Cain, good to talk to you. Thanks so much.

Prof. CAIN: Sure.

BLOCK: Bruce Cain is a political science professor at UC Berkeley.

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