Does John Edwards Really Have 26 Pledged Delegates?

I'm sure I'm not the only Kossack who is keeping his/her own spreadsheet of popular vote and/or pledged delegate yields from each of the Democratic primary contests. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been confused at the conflicting numbers of pledged delegates that various media outlets (and official party sources, blogs, etc.) report Obama and Clinton have received in various state contests. And that's not even getting into the superdelegate mess, which I'm not even bothering to track.

One number that many sources seem to agree on at the moment, though, is that John Edwards is still sitting on twenty-six delegates that he won in the Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina contests. Unless I'm missing something, I think that's wrong; to my understanding, Edwards only has sixteen (at most) remaining, because the other ten have been distributed to Obama (six) and Clinton (four). If so, that would slightly change the state of the delegate race between those two--and Edwards' direct influence on same.

When Edwards dropped out of the Democratic race on January 30, I read the AP story that stated:

As expected, Edwards said he was suspending his campaign rather than ending it, but aides said that was simply legal terminology so that he can continue to receive federal matching funds for his campaign donations.

An immediate impact of Edwards’ withdrawal will be six additional delegates for Obama, giving him a total of 187, and four more for Clinton, giving her 253. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

Edwards won 26 delegates in the Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina contests. Under party rules, 10 of those delegates will be automatically dispersed among Obama and Clinton, based on their vote totals in those respective contests. The remaining 16 remain pledged to Edwards, meaning his campaign will have a say in naming them.

Three superdelegates — mainly party and elected officials who automatically attend the convention and can support whomever they choose — had already switched from Edwards to Obama before news of Edwards’ withdrawal from the race.

(Emphasis added.) I could have sworn I saw the same point made in other news accounts shortly after Edwards dropped out. Today, though, I'm having trouble finding independent confirmation; this CBS News article appears to be closely connected to the AP one.

In any case, if those news accounts are correct, there are sixteen outstanding Edwards delegates, not twenty-six--and Obama has an additional +2 from the ten delegates that have been re-allocated. (I presume that the re-allocation works this way because of the candidates' finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire and/or South Carolina--i.e., Obama and Clinton are picking up additional delegates from some or all of those states as a result of Edwards dropping out.)

Well, for whatever it's worth, nearly everyone appears to have forgotten this angle of the race. Neither poblano nor Chris Bowers--nor even the Obama campaign itself--appears to be factoring the ten reallocated delegates into his/its calculations. (My comments on the topic appear thus far to have gone unnoticed. :-)

Is there anything here I'm missing?

(Additionally, as a Monday diary by Alan in Phoenix attests, there appears to be reason to question whether Edwards even has control over all sixteen of his remaining delegates--but the complexities of that issue are far beyond me.)