Opinion: California’s Democratic delegation is ready with its roll call count (finally)

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

So what was the final, official vote, anyway, in that race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? And how about the breakdown in the mammoth California delegation?

As of earlier today, almost a week after the much-publicized roll call vote that officially anointed Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee, party officials still had not released the convention-wide numbers. (It’s an academic exercise, we know, but we’re still curious about it).

The state-by-state roll call was memorably cut off by Clinton herself, when she moved to make Obama the nominee by acclamation. At the time, 32 delegations had weighed in and Obama was leading 1,549 to 341.

California had passed when its turn came up early in the roll call because, state party advisor Bob Mulholland later related, votes within the delegation were still being counted.

Today,Mulholland said the count finally had been completed and the final numbers were: Obama, 273; Clinton, 166 (remember, Clinton won the Feb. 5 California primary).

Two superdelegates missed the convention and did not vote: U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Carole Migden.

As for the total vote, well, Democratic officials were still working on it as of late this afternoon.

A spokeswoman for the Democratic National Convention Committee, Natalie Wyeth, said paperwork had been shipped back from the convention site in Denver, but that the Labor Day holiday delayed the tally.

Wyeth said she expected the official count to be released soon, perhaps by day’s end.

-- Peter Nicholas