Leave it to the people: Superdelegates harm electoral process

By Vincent Stigliani 2010

In the current Democratic presidential nomination, there are two different results you have seen.

There are solely the delegate count from delegates given out correspondingly to the results of the primaries and caucus, and then there are results with these delegates plus super delegates.

Super delegates are delegates that party officials and high ranking members of the Democratic Party.

They can put their support behind any candidate. Super delegates make up 1/5th of the convention.

A candidate would have to have over a 3/5th lead for them to not have the power to overturn everything the candidate has accomplished.

Following the hectic 1968 Democratic National Convention, changes were made that lessened the impact of party leaders and gave more power to the voters.

Following this, many Democrats felt that too much power had been taken away from elected officials, which weakened the Democratic ticket.

After the 1980 election the super delegate system was implemented in response to these concerns.

Many Democrats hoped this would ensure that the Democratic Party’s stances did not waver and that candidates from other parties would not be able to succeed on the Democrat ticket.

This system has already swayed an election.

In a very tight 1984 race for the Democratic nomination Walter Mondale was able to triumph over Gary Hart because of the large backing of elected officials.

In this year’s election, Hilary Clinton’s delegate count looks much better when the super delegates are taken into account. She has been in politics for a while and is getting more pledged super delegate, for she is more of an “establishment,” candidate.

That these super delegates are even a factor in this election is not fair.

Although the original intention was to make sure the Democratic nomination was given only to someone who follows the party line, both candidates accomplish this requirement.
These super delegates definitely need to be disbanded.

In a time when voting numbers are already low enough and we are trying to bring them up, nothing says “We don’t trust your vote,” like this broken system.

I find it incredibly disappointing that in the Democratic race, the winner of the popular public vote may not be the candidate to win the party nomination.

Are we a country of the people, or of the high-ranking party leaders?