The endorsement race for the Dem challenger to Joe Robach in SD-56 has some folks scratching their heads over how the voting is weighted. A reader in the know helpfully wrote up something to explain it:

Weighting votes, unraveling the mystery.

There are a lot of details behind how votes are weighted that are quite extraneous, but let me try to give the highlights.

Within each town or city legislative district (LD), there are election districts (EDs). These election districts are given a weighted vote based on the number of votes cast in the Gubernatorial election on the Democratic line. When someone passes petitions to join a Democratic Committee, they represent one of these election districts and bring that weighted vote to their committee. The total weighted vote for a town of city Legislative District Committee is the total of these weighted votes. (Heavily Democratic areas like the city, tend to have higher weighted votes per ED since they vote in higher percentages for the Democratic Governor candidate. That is why some city LDs have less people, but higher weighted votes)

EX: Demtown Committee members:
Jim represents ED 1 worth 30 weighted vote
Jill represents ED 7 worth 20 weighted votes
Jorge represents ED 8 worth 50 weighted vote
Jerry represents ED 10 worth 20 weighted vote
Joanne represents ED 11 worth 30 weighted vote
Jessica represents ED 15 worth 50 weighted vote
Total Demtown weighted vote: 200

OK, so that’s how weighted vote is calculated …. now, here is how the caucus effects that:

At the caucus, it is one person one vote. So, the weighted vote is awarded to each candidate based on the percentage of votes cast in their favor.

EX: Demtown Committee Caucus
Candidate Anita N. Dorsement - receives 3 votes (50%)
Candidate Justin O. Fiss - receives 2 votes (~33%)
Candidate Flo R. Child - receives 1 vote (~17%)

So, their respective percentages of the total 200 weighted vote means each candidate will walk away with:
Candidate Anita N. Dorsement - receives 100 weighted votes
Candidate Justin O. Fiss - receives 66 weighted votes
Candidate Flo R. Child - receives 34 weighted votes

These votes are collected throughout the County Committee and are cast at the County Designating caucus in May.

So there you go. Any questions??

Update: You can also see the weights assigned to the various parts of the district and how these are calculated in documents provided by MCDC as part of an earlier post here.