Michigan's "Soviet-like ballot" gave voters no choice, depressed turnout

UPDATE FROM JOHN: Joe just called. He's arrived at the hotel where the meeting is taking place. To quote Joe: "There aren't ten thousand people here." (That's what the protest organizers were promising.)

Heading over to the Wardman Park Marriott for the DNC Rules Committee meeting. I'll be liveblogging the proceedings (they start at 930am Eastern). C-SPAN will be covering it live, too. Leave it to the Democrats to get caught up in a contentious intra-party battle over rules just five months before the election. Maddening.

For the past months, we've had to listen to Hillary Clinton and her spinners talk about the fair result in Michigan. That would be the election where she was the only person on the ballot. Former Senator Don Riegle offered his views on the Michigan primary in the Detroit News yesterday:

The Michigan Democratic primary election offered a Soviet-like ballot -- in that Michigan voters were not given a real choice among candidates. There was no competitive Democratic primary in Michigan -- a primary where viable candidates compete to earn the support of voters. Instead, Michigan Democratic Party officials permitted an election to take place even though three of the viable candidates (Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson) had properly removed their names from the ballot to fully comply with DNC rules. The election went forward with only one viable candidate on the ballot (Hillary Rodham Clinton) in direct violation of DNC rules and with full knowledge -- and acknowledgement -- that the Michigan delegation would not be seated at the nominating convention in Denver.

As a result, the percentage of Michigan voter turnout was lower than any other state except Utah -- a state the Republicans won in 2004 with 70 percent of the vote. It is estimated that a competitive primary would have resulted in at least 700,000 more Democratic voters in Michigan. In fact, those who might have voted actually represent a greater number than those that did vote in the rogue Democratic primary.

Given that voters were offered no real choice among candidates and that Michigan's vote would not count, voter participation as a consequence was reduced by 50 percent or more.

The results of this fake primary cannot be used as a proper basis for determining the allocation of delegates to the remaining two Presidential candidates. As there was no real competition, there is no meaningful basis for accurately measuring either candidate's level of support in Michigan.

That would also be the election that Hillary Clinton agreed would "count for nothing." At the time, Hillary's only concern about Michigan was how we would fare against Republicans in the fall - she didn't care one lick about "fairness" or "every vote being counted":

"It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything," Clinton said Thursday during an interview on New Hampshire Public Radio's call-in program, "The Exchange." "But I just personally did not want to set up a situation where the Republicans are going to be campaigning between now and whenever, and then after the nomination, we have to go in and repair the damage to be ready to win Michigan in 2008."