#katrilli

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How the United States chooses which candidate from the Democratic and Republican parties will be their nominee for President is based on a delegate system. It is not strictly who gets the most votes, but who gets the most delegates. (Our general election for President is run the same way, through the Electoral College, but that’s a topic for another day.) Each state has a certain number of delegates (generally based on population) and depending on the results of the popular vote, the delegates are split between the candidates proportionately. Seems fair enough, even if it’s not as straightforward as relying strictly on the actual number of votes.

In the Democratic party, there are 4,763 delegates among the 50 states, Washington DC, and the several US territories. The primary elections take place from February to June, ending in the party’s National Convention, this year from July 25-28th. At the convention, the delegates for each candidate are counted and whoever has the majority (at least 2,382) becomes the nominee for President.

The problem comes in when you factor in the votes of the superdelegates. These are 712 delegate votes (15% of the total) that are not bound to follow primary election results. They can vote for whichever candidate they choose, even if that candidate would otherwise lose the nomination because the other candidate earned more delegates based on primary and caucus votes. This is not democracy.

We have relied on the primary/caucus system of selecting party nominees since the late 1960s. Before then, candidates were chosen by party insiders. The strong civic activism of the 60s pushed for the change, recognizing how clearly undemocratic it was to leave such an important decision up to a privileged few. By 1982, Democratic party insiders had had enough and wanted to take back some control. So they created superdelegates.

Who are these superdelegates? Democratic party insiders. They include every Democratic member of the Senate and House, every Democratic governor, and hundreds of Democratic Mayors, State party Chairs and Vice Chairs, and other current and former party leaders. Basically, members of the party establishment who are inclined to support the establishment candidate; in this case, Hillary Clinton. Currently, over half of the superdelegates have already announced their support for Clinton.

It’s important to say that the superdelegates are able to change their minds at any point leading up to the National Convention. In early 2008, the superdelegates were also leaning toward Clinton, though not in numbers quite as high as this year. Eventually, though, many of them moved over to supporting Senator Obama. It is misleading, therefore, for media outlets to report that Hillary is leading the delegate count by hundreds when, according to the results of our two actual elections so far, Bernie is leading 36-32. The only reason corporate media, as a tool of the political establishment, would report these misleading, indefinite numbers, is to make Clinton, the establishment candidate, appear more electable.

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