'Weirdness' in Colorado Shorted Sanders a Delegate, Briefly

And no one decided to tell him
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 12, 2016 1:48 PM CDT
'Weirdness' in Colorado Shorted Sanders a Delegate, Briefly
Bernie Sanders waves as he speaks at a campaign rally Monday in New York.   (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Bernie Sanders was shorted a delegate in Colorado's March 1 caucus after—in the words of the state's Democratic Party chairman—"a little weirdness" happened when vote totals were punched in, the Denver Post reports. Chairman Rick Palacio says a "reporting error" by a volunteer resulted in Sanders getting 570 votes—nearly 4%—fewer than he should have. The Colorado Democratic Party realized the error a week after the caucus and corrected it but didn't publicly acknowledge it until the Post discovered it Monday. "It was an embarrassment on our part for sure," Palacio says. And while the party discussed the new results with the Clinton campaign last week, it didn't inform the Sanders campaign because, as Palacio puts it, "it didn't necessarily affect" them. The Sanders campaign found out about the situation from the Post on Monday.

The shift of one delegate can have big ramifications for both campaigns in Colorado. The new tally gives Sanders 39 delegates to Clinton's 27 with 12 superdelegates in play. Clinton was expected to get the support of the superdelegates and end up taking a majority of Colorado's total delegates. Now the best she can do is tie Sanders. And if Sanders picks up even one of the two superdelegates who remain undecided, he takes the majority. This is undeniably good news for Sanders, but don't get too excited yet. The Washington Post reports Clinton still has a huge delegate lead over Sanders—even without taking superdelegates into consideration—and "will almost certainly be her party's nominee." (More Bernie Sanders stories.)

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