2 From '1707' Elected
DC 37 Delegates Don't Make Cut

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Preliminary results from the New York Democratic presidential primary show that the tight race between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, combined with byzantine election rules, prevented most city union officials running as delegates from gaining official seats at the party's national convention this year.

LILLIAN ROBERTS: Voting rules casualty.

District Council 37 ran four delegates pledged to Ms. Clinton and none of them made the cut, including Executive Director Lillian Roberts and Treasurer Maf Misbah Uddin, although shifts due to absentee ballots and voting machine checks could change the outcome. The results had not yet been certified as this newspaper went to press Feb. 11.

'1707' Obama Hopefuls In

Two of the four delegates fielded by DC 1707 for Mr. Obama, both rank-and-filers, were elected, one from Brooklyn's 11th Congressional district and the other from the 6th district in Queens.

United Federation of Teachers executive board member Nina Tribble and New York State United Teachers President Richard Iannuzzi both won races representing Ms. Clinton on Long Island, but a third UFT member was knocked out of the competition in the 13th district, which covers parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island.

RICHARD IANNUZZI: A Clinton delegate.

The unions did not want to comment as this newspaper went to press because the results were not official.

Voters in the Jan. 5 Democratic primary were allowed to vote for five or six delegates, who had pledged to support a particular candidate, depending upon the number of registered Democrats in the district.

The coveted spots give the activists access to the convention floor and a bevy of backrooms where much of the politicking takes place, as well as a vote when the party decides on its platform.

Sentiments Split

Although DC 1707's parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, endorsed New York's home Senator, some DC 1707 locals favored Mr. Obama. The delegates were pledged in the fall before the AFSCME endorsement and DC 1707 put resources into helping to get their members elected.

DC 1707 members Mabel Everett and Sylvia Philipp were the second-highest vote-getters in the 6th and 11th districts respectively, which gave them spots as Obama delegates. The Illinois Senator edged out Ms. Clinton by a close margin in both areas.

SYLVIA PHILIPP: Rides Obama to convention.

Mr. Uddin and Local 1549's vice chair of the Police Administrative Clerical Chapter Belinda Dixon received the lowest and second-lowest number of votes respectively in Ms. Clinton's column in their districts, making the outcome less likely to shift after the results are certified. Ms. Clinton won handily in Mr. Uddin's race in the 9th district, which covers parts of Brooklyn and Queens, as well as District 13, covering parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn, where Ms. Dixon was running for delegate.

Political Director Out?

DC 37's political director, Wanda Williams, also appeared to have been knocked out of the delegate pool even though she was the second-highest vote-getter in Ms. Clinton's column in most of the upstate counties that make up the 22nd district, where Mr. Obama bested the AFL-CIO's "favorite sister."

The rules that send the delegates to the convention do not follow a simple winner-take-all equation. Nationally, the candidate with the greatest number of delegates becomes the party's nominee. But Democratic Party rules in New York mandate that candidates receive delegates in each district based on the proportion of votes that they win.

For example, if a district assigned six delegates splits evenly between two candidates, each one gets three delegates. If it goes 60 percent to 40 percent, the delegates are divided by giving 4 to the winning candidate and 2 to the losing one.

New York will send a total of 281 delegates to the August convention in Denver, and 151 of them come directly from the 29 congressional districts. (Another 81 at-large delegates are divided between the candidates based on the proportion of the vote they win statewide, while 45 super delegates are pre-chosen and 4 un-pledged delegates are elected at the party's state convention.)

Male/Female Sequence

To ensure that there is an equal number of male and female candidates, gender is also taken into account when choosing delegates. For example, Ms. Williams received the second-most votes in Ms. Clinton's column and the New York Senator won three delegates in that district, but Ms. Williams still didn't make the cut. That's because District 22 happened to begin its gender sequence with a male delegate (District 23 started with a female), so it was the first and second-highest male vote-getters and the top female vote-getter who got elected as Clinton delegates.

In Ms. Roberts's race in Manhattan's 8th district, she was the fourth-highest vote-getter, but Ms. Clinton only won three of the six delegates. Her district began with a male, so State Sen. Thomas K. Duane, Assemblywoman Deborah J. Glick and Borough President Scott Stringer won the available spots. A change of three percentage points in that district could give Ms. Clinton the four delegates needed to grant Ms. Roberts a seat at the convention.

'1707' Shutouts

Mr. Obama was the victor in the 10th district, where DC 1707 staff member Miranda Galindo ran for delegate, but she did not receive enough votes to make the list. DC 1707 member Dolores Dow faced the same fate in upper Manhattan's 15th CD, where Ms. Clinton managed a slim victory over Mr. Obama, and the candidates got three votes each.

UFT retiree Dilia Schack also failed to make the grade, receiving the fewest votes among Clinton delegates in the 13th district, where the New York Senator beat Mr. Obama handily.

State officials expect to release the official results on Feb. 12.