What's this "superdelegate" thing?

Many states appoint delegates who are "recognized party leaders" by virtue of holding office. I think there is another way to be a "super" delegate in some states, and it connects to being loyal to the party, etc. The interesting thing about super delegates is that they can vote for any candidate they want. The do not have to follow the results of the primary vote. In terms of this election, I'm pretty sure almost all the super delegates will support Clinton.

What weight do their votes carry?

by the results of the primary or caucus system like other delegates are. As was pointed out, most are elected democratic office-holders along with a few party officials. They're basically at-large delegates in a system that elects delegates at district conventions for the most part.

They're called "super delegates" because they can vote as they please, regardless of primary results. Sometimes, they make a difference, and sometimes not. They make up less than 20% of delegates, but can be a deciding factor.

powers.

vote for party leader at a convention (no primaries or caucuses) and in the general election you vote for your local representative. In other words, the average person never votes directly for party leader. Yes, Canada is also a democracy.

wish and are not bound to vote for any particular candidate. They have one vote. Many feel that they have earned that vote because they are established elected officials, sent to office by the voters. Their role only really matters when there is a close distribution of votes for candidates at the convention or when there are three candidates and no majority. In those cases, super delegates can affect the election. They exist to prevent "smoke-filled" room negotiations when there are multiple candidates and to arrive at the necessary majority when one cannot be developed through normal processes. Most often, they're just voting delegates.

Conventions now are different than they were back in the 50s and 60s. That's partly because of these super delegates. Some people would like to go back to the old walking caucus free-for-all conventions. Myself, I'm not fond of the old convention system. I think it led to some pretty questionable decisions, really. 1968 was a good example. That year could have been done better and saved us from Richard Madman Nixon. Go read a history of that convention. It was a cluster-intercourse of a convention.

Yes, exactly. In this election, they could be a factor if Sanders finishes the primaries by winning, for example, 35 percent of the pledged delegates to Clinton's 40 percent. With neither candidate holding a clear majority of delegates, the result should be a brokered convention, but the super delegates would all vote for Clinton and she would win on the first ballot. There is some likelihood something of this nature will happen this time around. It's kind of like Bush losing the popular vote but winning (?) the presidency; we said it would never happen, but it did.

be very, very highly unlikely. I predict that it will be nowhere near that close. If Biden does enter the race, then there might be a race between him and Clinton to be dealt with at the convention, though. I doubt that will be the case, either.

The chances are small, but not as small as in a typical primary.

and super delegates played a role in it, too. It was a lot closer than the 2016 one will be, though, and still ended up with Obama as the nominee, as it should have. I think Sanders will step out on March 2, 2016 and endorse Clinton. I'll bet he knows he's going to be doing that right now, frankly, and may have known it all along. He has managed to push the conversation further to the left that it might have been, which I think was his primary goal. I don't believe for a second that he thought he'd be the nominee.

That's my opinion and projection only, of course.

If you paid a certain amount to the party of your choice, you could buy additional votes on a proportional basis. The more you pay the more votes you get.

Or we could just quit pretending that voting even means anything, eliminate the middle man and just auction the presidency off directly to the highest bidder.

democracy in the US. A better name would have been "Wealth United."

wwwwwwwWWWWWWHHHAAAAAAAAT?????

in the country. Getting on the ballot for any national or state office requires only a petition signed by 25 adult residents of Tennessee, and completing a two-page application. That's it. There's no application fee.

In contrast, Florida requires a petition signed by something like 2% of the number of people who voted in the last election (which in Florida is something like 150,000 signatures) and an application fee of several thousand dollars.

Registering a party in Tennessee is not so easy. The Green Party took Tennessee to court over the party registration laws, and won, I believe.

Is there a good reason for these discrepancies across states?

There's no reason it couldn't have been ordered some other way, but this is the way it was done.

The U.S. Constitution states that "The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof"

Each state makes it's own rules regarding the specifics of elections. There are some other constitutional requirements that must be met, but the individual states determine their own particular rules.

My feeling is that in a democratic system under a ruling class of any kind there should be no access-to-power differentials maintained over geographic areas. All should have equal access.

where power is divided between a national government and the states. Election laws must be applied uniformly within a state, and all state laws must conform to federal laws and constitutional requirements.

There's a pretty good case to be made for the states having control over their elections. Local control can be preferable to central control for a variety of reasons.

The authority of the states is not absolute. Citizens of a state have recourse with the federal government if a state's election laws violate federal law.

Party politics is a whole other matter. How the political parties choose to select their candidates is largely completely up to them, although there are some aspects that are governed by both state and federal law.

Yes, where the local control is part of a system that only affects that locality. When it's part of system that has global effects, local control is in danger of becoming a power-access distortion, not a specificity filter.

There needs to be things about the different states that makes access to power granted from those states differentiable. What is it? Does Delaware produce stupid people? Is Colorado liable to produce only novelty candidates? Does Florida need more time to think because they're all too sleepy?

????

The reason I think discrepancies between ballot laws across states is anti-democratic is because it's part of a process for a position over the entire nation, not just the individual states. The states and the nation are seperate legal entities, you don't need me to tell you that, I'm sure!

Do you not think, sir/ma'am, that you may be justifying this simply out of habit, out of familiarity with it? I am possibly not in a position to make such comments as that, as I am from a tiny country in Europe with a very old and much simpler democracy, and have not as much knowledge of the intracacies of the American electoral system as yourself, but your "local control" point seems terribly fuzzy to me.

I'm describing the political arrangement that was made in 1787 when the U.S. Constitution was adopted. It established a federal system with power being shared by a national government and the individual states. It was left to the states to decide when, where, and how to hold elections to choose who will represent them in Congress.

"Local control can be preferable to central control" is a general premise that might be true for a variety of situations. I'm not sure what's "fuzzy" about the idea of centralization vs. decentralization. The question arises in education, economics, politics, etc. Decentralization is inherent in a federal system.

Our national government simply does not have the authority to move into the states and run their elections. That would require a constitutional amendment to replace Article 1 Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

So, with the understanding that this is purely an academic discussion -- the U.S. federal system being what it is -- local control is more democratic, not less. With each step up in levels of government, an individual citizen's direct influence becomes more diluted. Elections in the United States are very much a local matter. Tennessee, where I live, is typical of many states. Citizens register to vote at their local county elections office. The county elections supervisor is locally elected. Election volunteers from the local community staff the polling stations on election day.

Regarding your question, why are voting laws and procedures different in Colorado and Tennessee? They just are. 50 different states have independently determined their own manner of holding elections. I don't know what else say. Feel free to explain why you believe a homogeneous, centralized, federally-run system of elections is inherently better than a heterogeneous, decentralized, state-run system.

If there is no appetite to change it, my railing against it is doubly foolish as it doesn't even affect me, I suppose...

Having said that, I don't really know what to say about your last statement as it seems to me that if you're getting together a mandate for a democratically elected representative of a geographic area, then there shouldn't be power-access discrapancies over that area. It's quite different if you're only electing representatives for that area, obviously.

"They just are." - Well, that's exactly what I was saying! Support for a process solely through familiarity!

As each state is putting forth their bit of mandate for the same position (the presidency) then their process for doing so ought to be the same, no? Otherwise it's not fair! I'm sorry but I don't know how else to say it, it seems so intuitively obvious to me. If not the same, why not? Why should it be harder for Florida to get behind a candidate than Tennessee?

I don't know if this will mean anything to you but if we had different access processes for parliamentary candidates across the UK, people woud be up in arms about it!

Isn't there perhaps a movement in the States that wishes to homogenise ballot access?

The advantage of homogenous system is that it's difficult to exploit and game the system, for one thing.

in all sorts of different ways. Some of the perennial favorite proposals are: to reform the electoral college system for selecting the president in favor of direct election, to establish term limits for Congress, and to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (the Equal Rights Amendment was passed in both houses of Congress but narrowly failed to win ratification by the required number of states.)

There is no widespread movement to replace Article 1 Section 4 that I'm aware of.

Your "fairness" argument -- such as it is -- is unconvincing. You say that if there is a group of distinct, independent, political entities (the states) who each have the authority to put forward their choice for a national leader, then "fairness" demands that each state conforms to the practice of every other state. You propose that the truth of this is self-evident.

The U.S. constitution and federal law includes guarantees and requirements that elections in the states are internally consistent and fair. The U.S. constitution recognizes the states as independent political entities with the authority to put forward their choice for a national leader, independently and without regard to what other states choose to do.

Your argument says that fairness demands that states must give up their independence and autonomy to freely determine who they would put forward for national leadership.

There is nothing inherently unfair about a group of independent entities holding independent, internal deliberations over their choice for collective leadership. I would suggest that that is self-evident.

(P.S. : Twice you've suggested that my perspective is the product of simple "familiarity" -- as if I'm unwilling or incapable of objective, critical examination of the American political system. That's mildly annoying.)

In the end, sir/ma'am, it is your country, after all.

I apologise for annoying you.

Yuo already know what I think so I will not repeat my arguments.

Maybe I already know what you think and maybe I don't. I'm not sure.

If I've got it right, you say that independent states with the explicit authority to establish internally consistent, constitutionally sound, and democratic processes for determining who shall be their choice for national leader is inherently unfair and "anti-democratic" if those states don't all go about it the same way.

Anyway, I agree with you that we've beat this thing to death.

the party honchos felt that there was too much
democracy as far as primaries were concerned.
Thus they made sure that 20% of the delegates
were entrenched party "functionaries". They
called it: putting some adults in the room.
Generally they vote with the establishment
candidate. They knew that Obama belonged
into the establishment group, and so when courted by him
they gave him their vote to a good degree.

I doubt that any of them would give Bernie
a chance. If Hillary gets 100% of their vote, then
she only needs 31% of the primary delegates
to vote for her. Any other opponent however
would need to gain 66% of the primary delegates
to win.
That is how I see it.

The Labour Party in the UK used to have the Unions which were in a similar position.

Emergency response brigade. For those of us old enough to remember.

avoid brokered conventions.

If one candidate is at 47% and another candidate is at 48% they might put their thumb on the scale. I doubt they would put their whole hand on the scale if one candidate was at 48% and the other candidate was at, say 30% , and I stand by that proposition.

It sounds...

I don't know if I can say how it sounds.

They exist , imho, to decide very close and hotly contested elections.

Here's the results for the 1984 election. If not for the superdelegates Gary Hart could have won with less votes by making a deal with Jesse Jackson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_1984

?

Democratic candidate for President. The DNC met & proclaimed that the super delegates were to commit to Mr. Obama. This is where the DNC is stuck in the 2016 election. I think a deal was made with Secretary Clinton that if she did not fight this commitment of the super delegates to Mr. Obama, they would put their power behind her for the election after Mr. Obama's term(s) were over.

FFFFFFUCKED.

There have been instance where candidates have won more votes in caucuses and earned less delegates than the loser because of the vagaries of the process...

I don't have a problem with superdelegates putting their thumb on the scale in those instances where the results are close and hotly disputed.

I can't think of one instance where the superdelegates went with the candidate with less votes.

Justify the issue I was actually reacting to, please, DemocratSinceBirth.

Many posters here are under the mistaken impression that you can win the nomination with a plurality of delegates...Technically if no candidate arrives at the Convention with a majority of delegates they will be released after the first round of voting and are free to vote for whomever they want. Then the horse trading begins. The superdelegates are there to ensure this doesn't happen...

If you exclude the superdelegates neither Clinton nor Obama arrived at the 08 Convention with a majority of delegates.

I don't have a problem with superdelegates playing a role in a close election.

You are aware that it isn't.

Here's a question for you...



What happens if Candidate A arrives at the Convention with 46% of the popular vote and 48% of the delegates and Candidate B arrives at the Convention with 45% of the popular vote and 49% of the delegates?

Who gets the nomination?

I submit it's not black and white.

What happens if candidate A gets 46% of the vote and no delegates and candidate B gets 45% of the vote and no delegates because there aren't any delegates?

Seems easy enough to answer to me.

Also, the FFFFFUCKED thing, i.e., delegates promising support NEXT TIME. Which is the the thing that is fucked. What are your thoughts there?

In fact, the reverse looked likely to happen and the super delegates decided on their own they would not reverse the will of primary voters and caucus goers.

The thick plottens...

A state was given a certain number of delegates based on its electoral vote (as I recall it was 4 per EV for the Dems). A state also received a "bonus delegate" for having a Democratic governor plus a bonus delegate for each Democratic senator or representative. By courtesy, each of the bonus delegate slots were given to the governor/senator/congressman to allow him to be at the convention and vote with the delegation.

The McGovernites did a coup on the various state conventions and made them solidly their followers, freezing out the elected officials from the delegations. The super delegate system was a reaction to that.

I've ever seen. The Wikipedia article is terrible and terribly confusing. Yours is the most concise and ACCURATE account I've ever seen. You need to post this as an OP. Good job ma'am/sir.

and for their greatness were anointed by Shelia to be Super-delegates.

This created the Third-race of democrats, who are worshipped by mortals, who usually on proclaimed Tuesdays approach ground blessedly known as "The Polls" (not to be confused with Festivus Poles) to cast ballots (now often digital) representing assent of the lowly common people of the Third-Way to be governed by their Betters (not to be confused with Beaters, we haven't had beaters since Maynard G. Krebs' bongo drums were tossed in the trash by Mr Gillis).

by the Guardians of Good Sense and My Goodness We Really Need to Keep Things in Perspective Round These Here Parts.

I'm not joking. It sounds satirical.

This Land Was Made For You and Me.

It seems the DNC delegates are significantly older than hippies

When your ideas cannot carry you through.

Sounds like a recipe for anti-democratic malarkeys of all shapes and kinds to me...

Florida and Michigan were seated at the convention, but with only one-half vote each, because of their states' violations of scheduling rules.

In 2004:
Carol Moseley Braun Wesley Clark Howard Dean (53) John Edwards (23) Richard Gephardt John Kerry (381) Dennis Kucinich (2) Joseph Lieberman Al Sharpton (5)

John Kerry won 2573 total, so it did not affect election.

For these elections I could not find superdelegate total, but the margins show they had no affect.

2000, could not find superdelegate data, but Gore won 3,007 (85.16%) 522 (14.78%)

In 1992, Clinton (3,372) Brown (596) Tsongas (289) - Not a factor

1988 Dukakis (1,792) Jackson (1,023) Gore (374) Gephardt (137) Simon 161 - Not a factor.

I tried to get more information, but it is not easy to find, and superdelegate totals are just nonexistent.

The chance of them having any affect on the election is quite remote.

Also, they can change their votes if they want.

Okidokey. I still don't see what they're for...

If somebody could not reach that via committed delegates on the first ballot, the super delegates would tip the balance.

Since party primary processes are not actually part of the official electoral process, but are established by parties to determine their nominee, it is not surprising that the party has some processes intended to ensure the party leadership has some influence over who the nominee is in cases of tight delegate counts.

If the money, influence, excluding as many as possible in all practical application from the decision making, process, and the bought media don't give an acceptable to power result and it is anywhere near close (this could mean even double digits) then they have one last trick in the bag before they really have to get nasty to maitain order.