In the recent New Hampshire primary, Bernie Sanders won by 22 percentage points. However, he still received less delegates than his opponent, Hillary Clinton, did. How is this possible??? Super delegates.
There are many special Democratic delegates, called super delegates, who are allowed to choose whichever candidate they want to support, up until the convention this coming summer. For this reason, even though Bernie technically won New Hampshire, he still received less delegates than Clinton. In order for Bernie to win, he would have to win by large margins in the future primaries because he needs a significant amount of delegates. Another issue for him in this case is that delegates are given proportionally. So, even if he wins in states -- like he did in New Hampshire-- Hillary can still receive delegates. Because of this, he must win by large amounts in order to get more delegates and beat her.
Many Americans, especially supporters of Bernie Sanders, have become outraged by the Democratic delegate system. Many believe that it is very undemocratic, and is rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. Groups like MoveOn.org have even started petitions in attempt to require super delegates to support the winning candidate. I agree with this idea because the system definitely seems to be working unfairly in Clinton's favor. Clinton has continuously claimed not to be part of the establishment, but this super delegate system is proving otherwise.
What are your thoughts?
Is the super delegate system undemocratic?
What are Bernie's chances of winning with this system in mind?
Source:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/Superdelegates-Help-Clinton-Expand-Her-Lead-Despite-New-Hampshire-loss--369319591.html
7 comments:
In my opinion, the electoral college system as a whole is antiquated and undemocratic. The very idea of it is to prevent the "common man" from voting--the common man in this case is anyone who is not white, rich, male, and landowning. Seeing as we have moved away from this model of government and all citizens can now vote, it's time for the election system to catch up. The argument that the electoral college was set up and supported by the founding fathers, and thus we shouldn't remove it, is entirely false. The founding fathers did not have the same idea of the general public as we do now. One of the beauties in the American governmental system is that things can be changed. A particularly undemocratic symptom of the electoral college is the existence of superdelegates in Democrat elections. Of course, they may seem like a good idea in theory (in that they align with the sentiment of an electoral college), but we can clearly see in this election that superdelegates work against the anti-establishment candidate. This is logical, as Hillary has always been the solid establishment choice, but now it doesn't seem like she's the people's choice. Our election should most definitely be up to the people and not up to elitists.
Though I am a Bernie supporter, I don't see him being able to beat the system. Unfortunately, the way it's set up at the moment, Hillary has the nomination in the bag. The odds are that Bernie will not be able to overcome the existence of superdelegates considering the fact that his popularity is already somewhat surprising. The good thing that comes from this election season, though, is that the people are hopefully finally realizing that the electoral college should be retired and the president should be decided based on the popular vote. If we consider ourselves to be shining examples of democracy, we should encourage and support democracy by doing away with the electoral college. At the very least, the Democrats should get rid of superdelegate votes.
I agree with maybesarah. The entire system is antiquated and undemocratic; and the superdelegates are the perfect example. Despite New Hampshire being a major psychological victory for Bernie Sanders, but he still has a long way to go. The fact there are no “winner takes all” states in the Democratic primaries means that the party still has some say, through the superdelegates, on who they want to elect. This process was created in order to restrict the “common man” because the Democratic party was afraid that they wouldn’t make the “right” decision. However that is more or less the opposite of democracy and I think the fact that the candidate who received the most votes didn’t get the most delegates appalling. As maybesarah said, this process favors the establishment candidate; but with all the Bernie Sanders and even Donald Trump support I think it is obvious that the American people want to shift away from the establishment. With this system, I think Bernie’s chances of winning are very tight. He chances look even more slim, because in the much more racially diverse South, Hillary Clinton hold the majority of votes and we will have to see if Bernie can hold on to his foundation but also take some of the Clinton supporters as well.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-2016-delegates-nomination-convention-213622
Of course the super delegate system is not democratic! It goes against the basic principles or democracy, the more votes one receives should be proportional to the amount of delegates they get. It is quite reminiscent of the electoral college and Senate. However, the super delegate system isn't some archaic tradition, the Democrats chose to have this in place. This is rather unfortunate for Bernie Sanders, seeing as most super delegates have pledged their allegiance to Hilary Clinton. This will make it very difficult for him to win. Not only must he win more and more states, he must also win them by large margins. He is already at a disadvantage coming in as and extreme candidate. Even if he wins certain states he could have less delegates just as occurred in New Hampshire. This gives him a severe disadvantage, as he must win the rest of the states by large margins. Therefore, just as Sarah said, I simply don't believe he will be able to beat the system, a non democratic one at that.
I agree with everyone else when I say that this is highly undemocratic. In previous presidential elections, the influence that superdelegates had on the selection of a Democratic nominee was somewhat negligible, due to the fact that they only make up roughly 15% of the total delegates at the National Convention. Nonetheless, in a race as close as Clinton's and Sanders', they could be the tiebreaker. Sanders and Clinton were separated by a margin of only .3% in Iowa, and though Bernie completely outclassed Clinton in New Hampshire, Nevada is looking to be another neck-and-neck campaign between the two Democratic rivals. Thus, because so many of these primaries and caucuses are proving to be close races, it is truly absurd that the determining factor in the selection of a Democratic nominee may turn out to be these un-elected superdelegates. For this reason, as much as it pains me to say it, these "peer-review" officials may very well steer the election in Clinton's favor.
This whole scenario is truly an insult to the American electoral system, since these un-elected delegates are more willing to support a corrupt establishment Democrat than a reform-minded progressive that has activated millions of young voters. It completely undermines the goals established by the McGovern-Frasier Committee, whose purpose was to make this whole process more responsive to the will of the people, and it is also incredibly ironic that the DEMOCRATIC party could allow something this UNDEMOCRATIC. All I can say is that if the Democratic Party hopes to maintain this trend of attracting young voters, it should ensure that the system does not appear rigged in Clinton's favor. After all, these young voters are going to be around for a while, so it's probably best to not alienate them at such an early age.
Any voting system that is set up so the voice of an elite minority out ways the voices of the majority is not only undemocratic, but corrupt. A system like this is entirely contradictory to American ideology because it makes it so that the votes of the people are voided by the votes of delegates. With a system like this, all democratic voters could cast their votes for one candidate, but the candidate that had no support wins the nomination because more delegates sided with him. I absolutely think that the Democratic Delegate system should be abolished because it stands against everything that the United States was built upon. No elite minority should ever have the capability to make decisions that go against the opinions of the majority.
I agree with Kyle, El Kitty Kat, and Claire. This system of peer review gives politicians too much power to vote not for the people, but for personal friends. Super delegates represent the elites, and when Hillary stole New Hampshire, it represented a victory for the elite and class theory. This will disenfranchise young voters, and if this trend is any indication, Hillary is going to win by default. Even if Bernie Sanders keeps hold of the popular vote, he's no match for the establishment sweetheart.
The super delegate system is extremely undemocratic. People with high political ranks, are given the rank of a super delegate. It allows for them to pledge their vote to a candidate at any time, under any circumstances, and allows for them to ignore the opinion of the public. For Bernie Sanders, this system is unfair because he won the primary in New Hampshire. However, Hilary Clinton won most of the super delegate votes, which makes her more of the winner. This is a problem for Bernie, because most of the super delegates have already given their pledge to Hilary, and the super delegates are what really allow for a candidate to win the Democratic nomination. I think at this point, Bernie's chances of winning are starting to decrease since he has not been able to gain votes among the super delegates. The reason why the super delegate system is unfair is because a candidate could essentially win the primary in a state, but not receive any of the super delegate votes, thus it really is considered a loss.
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