agreed. super informative! these processes are freakin stupid, but by now i guess that goes without saying.

Primary elections are held only to determine which member of a political party will run for President in the fall. This isn't a required step to running for President. Someone could simply run without being affiliated with a party. But, since people with the same ideologies tend to group together, the parties were formed.

The parties are basically organizations with their own sets of rules, and part of those rules is that only one member from their party may run for President in any given election. This is so that two members from the same party run, giving them the disadvantage because they have to compete against one another.

Another part of those rules is that primaries and caucuses can't be held earlier than February 5, with some exceptions for certain states for historical reasons. The problem is, states like to try and move their primaries earlier and earlier because it will bring more attention to them, resulting in a boost to the economy as politicians campaign there.

Michigan and Florida moved their primary dates up earlier, so as a punishment for breaking the party's rules, those states are not represented at the political conventions in the fall. The states had their elections anyway, although all the Democratic candidates agreed to stand by their party's rules and not campaign there.

Since the primary is not a competition between Democrats and Republicans, but a competition within the party, the stripping of delegates will not likely influence whether or not a Democrat wins in the fall, just which Democrat wins or loses.

wil, thank you for the explanation... but i still can not comprehend the notion that a state tries to hold it's primary too early and thus all the dem voters in that state have no input about who runs for president? there is some disconnect in the logic for me. it's actually rather undemocratic, no? a few party officials decide to try to bring some ill gained $ to the state and thus all the people that belong to their party get disenfranchised? did they not know that they would get caught? i mean, how do you try to hold an election early with out anyone catching on to it? i don't buy it. is there something i'm missing?

your graphs are really great.
what program did you use?
how long did it take to make them?

I agree, it is a sort of crazy situation. I think it has more to do with both sides having a disagreement, and pushing forward expecting the other side to cave in immediately.

However, since the election did take place, there is still a possibility that the delegates from those states could be reseated and counted at the convention.

I think it really shows that the delegate and superdelegate system is all very phony, and is just put in place to give party officials more input than the average citizen. I agree with you that the system is terrible. It really should be just a popular vote and that's it.

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The graphs were made in Keynote, and many of the diagrams were made in Motion, and everything was edited in Final Cut Pro.

The whole thing took around 10-14 hours to create.

That´s the kind of debate you don´t see in Youtube. Good job, Vimeo!

Thanks!

Remember, this video only covers the presidential nomination contests, not the general election which actually chooses a president.

It's still a good start !

Thanks!

The graphs were made in Keynote, and many of the diagrams were made in Motion, and everything was edited in Final Cut Pro.