King County Democrats Cry Foul Over a Rigged Delegate Count
The state Democratic Party cut King County's representation at the convention and handed its delegates to Pierce County — and the Post-Intelligencer was not about to let it pass quietly.
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The Democratic party of this state has a curious way of treating the Democrats of King county. Its managers seem to regard King county Democrats as of no account whatever, except for election-day purposes, and anything that can be done to turn them down and humiliate them is done with ghoulish glee.
Take, for instance, the call just issued for the Democratic state convention. The apportionment is supposed to be based on the vote cast for Cleveland in 1892. It must be admitted that in that year the Democrats of King county had an up-hill fight. They had been scorned, rebuffed and flouted at by their state convention. In spite of the disadvantages under which they labored, however, they pulled together 4,174 votes for Cleveland. This was 1,353 more votes than were cast for him by the Democrats of Pierce county, who had been petted and pampered and fed with sweetmeats from a golden spoon.
How is this fidelity to the party rewarded? By cutting down the representation of King county in the state convention and adding to the representation of Pierce. The apportionment is based on one vote in the convention for every 100 votes cast for Cleveland. This proportion is carried out in allotting delegates to all the counties except King and Pierce. When these two are reached their vote is lumped together and the delegations are divided evenly, or as nearly evenly as possible. In other words, six delegates to whom King county is fairly entitled are taken from it and given to Pierce county, which has no right to them whatever.
What explanation can be given for this action, what reason can be assigned for it, goodness only knows.
If the Democrats of King county have a spark of pride and manhood left, they will protest against this utterly unjust discrimination. They will elect the number of delegates to which they are properly entitled under the apportionment, and, more than this, will either protest against the seating of the six additional delegates given to Pierce county or will insist upon an equal number of additional votes being given to King.
It is none of our business, we know, but we do hate to see the King county Democrats made monkeys of.
“It is none of our business, we know, but we do hate to see the King county Democrats made monkeys of.”
King County's Democrats howled that a state party had rigged the delegate math against its own strongest county — an apportionment fight straight out of today's gerrymandering and representation arguments. Then as now, the rules that allocate power decide who actually gets a seat at the table.
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