Democratic Party Curtails Superdelegates of Power in Picking Presidential Nominee*.

Democrats Strip Superdelegates of Power in Picking Presidential Nominee.

An excerpt:

Democratic Party officials voted Saturday to strip superdelegates of much of their power in the presidential nominating process, infuriating many traditionalists while handing a victory to the party’s left flank.

The measure’s overwhelming approval – met by cheers in a hotel ballroom here – concluded a tense summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee, which had labored over the issue since 2016. Superdelegates that year largely sided with Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, enraging Sanders’ supporters.

Under the new rule, superdelegates – the members of Congress, DNC members and other top officials who made up about 15 percent of delegates that year – will not be allowed to vote on the first ballot at a contested national convention. The change could dramatically re-shape the calculus of future presidential campaigns, rendering candidates’ connections to superdelegates less significant.

The rule change faced intense opposition from a band of longtime Democratic Party officials who said the measure would disenfranchise party insiders. Their efforts appeared to gain momentum when Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond publicly urged DNC members to oppose the overhaul.

Weak, there should be no superdelegates, like in the Republican Party.

So now superdelegates can only vote after the 1st ballot? "Make your mind by the 1st ballot or we get to come in an vote anyway". Get the **** out.

This feels like "a nothing burger" Also when was the last time the DNC had a brokered convention.

But i know Sanders supporters feel like Clinton "stole" the election, but superdelegates have always fallen where the people vote, like in 2007 with Obama and Clinton, Clinton was ahead at the start but when Obama won primary after primary, they all fell in line with him.

Well, you don't have a brokered convention until you have a brokered convention. Always good to be prepared, specially for 2020 when Democrats are going to be falling over themselves to announce their candidacies since they smell blood in the water with Trump (and really just with the Republican Party in general). 2020 is shaping up to be like the Republicans primaries in 2016 with predictions of at least 6 candidates and maybe up to 16.

Democrats talk a lot about small d democracy, about how the Electoral College should be abolished but they don't seem to like to walk the walk on internal matters.

The lack of superdelegates is one of the things that allowed Trump to win the primaries, and a number of Republicans were kicking themselves over the fact that they didn't have that option to play.

Just something worth thinking about.

What do you think about it?

I think there's merits to both sides of this coin. Not having superdelegates means people are less likely to feel like their candidate got screwed by the system. On the otherhand having superdelegates means that a party can deny person who is wholly unsuited to be in charge of the country from getting an opportunity to do so.

Despite my dislike of Donald Trump who I believe falls in the "wholly unsuited" category I feel very indecisive about choosing either option. There doesn't seem to be a clear answer on it, and it's hard to even say which one has more benefits than drawbacks.

Donald Trump won the backing of the people, the People expressed their will.

I'm not for democracy only when I agree with the results.

Donald did not win the backing of people in the general election so I assume you're referring to the primary.

Anyway, Bernie didn't lose because of super delegates. The Democratic party is not as far left as many of you want to believe. There are a lot of moderates.

Superdelegates are weird, you can't mention the positives without mentioning the negatives. I just hope the Democrats get their shit in order.

Pretty much this. I'll add in, though, that it can also prevent someone who is qualified to be president, but who can't muster enough popular support to win the election. Though I'm sure every Bernout reading this right now is thinking "see, it IS an anti-Berniecrat conspiracy," it was originally devised in response to Democrats nominating an unpopular, pro-war, establishment Democrat instead of a slightly more popular anti-war one. It may not be the best strategy to always have the party's finger in the wind, but it does keep the more unelectable candidates from eking out a small majority.

This is a good move for a number of reasons.

Do we have examples of super delegates overriding primary voters? i.e. has there been a candidate that rec'd more popular votes in the primaries but didn't receive the nomination?

Democrats....Rules.....ha ha ha

Doesn't matter what the hell the rules are, the democrat elites at the top of the party will ignore the rules whenever its necessary to get the result(s) they want.

Trump won the presidential election by the rules and democrats still can't accept it. All this childish drivel about the so-called popular vote is just unhappy kids upset because their team didn't win.

So it really doesn't matter how they write the rules for their primaries. The elites will do what they must to get the candidate they want, and the rank and file democrat voter can just suck it if they don't like it.

You do know it was the elites that wrote the rules for the EC? You don't seem to know the history of voting at all.........but please keep crying. Tears are delicious.

So you are against democracy.

That is nice to know.

LOL the EC you love is against democracy...........

No, also there has never been a brokered convention in the last 50 years.

Not really.

The vote you want is actually far more anti-democracy than the EC.

Again remember it´s the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, not America the republic or single country.

So if you are for removing states rights and making us into a single country controlled by Washington, then, by all means, lets have the people in California and New York decide who is president for the rest of the country.

That isn't an excuse for the EC. I know you keep trying.

Excuse?

Not making any excuses, stating a fact is not an excuse and I am all for a different way of electing the president, especially since this 2 party system is FUBAR and for many, it does not suit the growing segment of independent voters.

But if your only suggestion is a pure popular vote, then that would only make sense if you also removed states rights, which is fine by me, it would make weed illegal again and also make things you are for like women rights more equal throughout the "nation"

@LJS9502_basic: its not an "excuse" the EC was created so the dense population of cities don't get to have 100% control of the country

Also super delegates are like buffers for when the elite don't like who the people voted for. They are worthless imo

It was created so the wealthy individuals in less populated areas had a bigger vote.

Sure it was

But who cares, today it´s a much better system than letting 2 highly populated areas decide matters that affect the entire country.

I don't have a problem with elites, per se, just political elites. Dem and Repub establishment politicians are all a plague on this nation.

You don't seem to understand how the POTUS is elected. I keep seeing you pushing this childish notion that there is a nationwide popular vote that Hillary won. There is no single, nationwide vote for POTUS. There are 50 statewide votes. The notion of a nationwide popular vote is created by the losers, and believed in by children.

I'm not crying, I'm laughing at anyone who thinks that what they want, or what they think, or what is important to them, matters in the slightest to the career politicians that run the parties. They see us all as useful idiots that they must occasionally placate with platitudes and rhetoric, while they make the rules that benefit themselves.

I eagerly await your condescending reply.

Superdelegates is a fancy word for Automatic Delegates rigged by the DNC.

You act as though the totality of the other states wouldn't drown out the voices of ONE side in a political election. Conservatives live by fear. It's how they vote. It's why they vote. It's why they demonize the other side.

Yes, the system that makes one persons vote matter more than another is clearly much better than following the will of the citizens. /s

But that's kind of the same thinking behind the electoral college. The founding fathers were concerned that the population wasn't fit to fully vote for a president, so they created this intermediary process. Superdelegates are kind of related.

@sonicare: and yet in 2016 the EC proved that they were the incompetent ones and the public was actually right.

Holy cow a bunch of nonsense.

You do know that the electoral college is based on the people in that state right?

@Jacanuk: and yet many (perhaps most) are not obligated to vote for same person their state voted for and they would have been wise not to do so, instead opting for the person that millions of more people voted for instead of the current ass clown we have now.

So because you personally don´t like a person, the electoral college should have gone against the will of the people? and pretty much destroyed democracy.

That is a pretty crazy thing to say and I did not know you supported a dictatorial rule.

The will of the people was not trump. He did NOT win the popular vote. The EC goes against the will of the people.

Again you have that all backwards.

The EC take each state's population into account, not just a highly populated area.

And in a nation of states with such strong state rights, you cannot have a single or two states population, which is fundamentally different from the rest of the country decide the path for the entire country.

No I understand the EC. It gives some people more of a voice than others. This is not actally fair nor democratic. Congress is the equalizer that gives states an equal say. That does NOT mean we should allow this to happen with the presidential election. Seems to me YOU don't understand what the apparatus of the EC does.

Why should Kentucky cancel oout the states rights of New York. You whine all the time about the need for EC but really you're whining out of fear that your party won't survive. Which is stupid. Largely populated states have republicans as well.

Well, clearly you do not understand the EC, but I can tell that you are referring to the votes each state get, which is based on the population of the state, why do you think California get´s a lot more electoral votes than Ohio, so if we go by your logic, how is it fair a population so fundamentally different from rest of America should cancel out a majority of states like Ohio? or Kentucky?

Anyways sure the EC is not 100% perfect, and no state is cancelled out, each state has a say in who is running this country both in Congress and in the white house.

It does not take each state's population into account equally.

California population 39.54 million

California number of electors 55

Wyoming population 579,315

Wyoming number of electors 3

California population per elector 39,540,000/55 = 718,909

Wyoming population per elector 579,315/3 = 193,105

In a world where Wyoming has 3 electors, California should have over 200 electors if population were taken into account equally. It does not.

Also, nothing about the structure of the electoral college prevents small states from being ignored. If a candidate won the 11 most populous states, he/she would win the electoral college, even if they lost every one of the 39 smallest states. It's merely the political reality of the moment and which large states happen to vote reliably Republican or Democrat, not the electoral college itself that dictates whether large states dominate.

Further, nothing about the people in the states that are over-weighted makes them worthy of more suffrage than the people in the large states. The reason people in a few states should decide the path for the nation, if that is the way a popular vote shakes out, is because they are the majority of the people in the nation. The majority of the people should decide the path of the nation. This is a fundamental human right called equal suffrage, it is stated explicitly in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and given international legal force in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, which we ratified in spite of our unequal suffrage.

No it's not based on equal population. Small sparsely populated states end up with more of a voice than those in densely population states. There is NOTHING about that is fair.

I understand the EC................you clearly do not. But please.....continue with the uneducated screech from your talking heads.

You are totally ignorant about civics.

Who said anything about equal population? I said the EC votes are based on the population of the state, Meaning a state like California will have way more votes than a state like Ohio or other states with a much smaller population.

And again no you do not understand the principal behind the Electoral college, You hopefully understand that America is made up of states with their own separate rights. Which means that a pure popular vote will be nothing else but a dictorial system that only benefits the states with a high population like California and New York.

It's unequal representation.

States have equal representation in Congress. That takes care of your state's rights argument right there.

You're wrong.

That is good, not perfect but it is an improvement. While it wont do much, it should improve morale and encourage voters to go to the polls somewhat.

Regarding the Electoral College: If you need a massive handicap to win an election. You probably need a better message.

I think everyone here understands how it works, they just disagree with it. The EC assumes a bottom floor of a state's worth at 2 votes, with an additional point for every state representative. This essentially means that a state with a hypothetical population of 1 person could potentially have 3 EC votes in an election. The system weighs less populated states heavily, there's no getting around that.

Labeling a pure population vote as 'dictatorial' is pure propaganda. You simply know that it levels the playing fields so that one person gets one vote. That means every vote for governors, senators, or state representatives are 'dictatorial' as well since they go off of pure popular vote. Conversely, I'd argue that a popular vote could engage and empower people in states that usually go blue/red every election year. You might see a higher turnout in non-swing states.

So why is it that popular votes are OK for every other position in the US government but not the president?

An easy answer to that.

A voter in California does not vote for who will represent Ohio and Ohio will not vote on who is representing California.

The President represents America not a few highly democratic states and one state that is so far out of touch with the rest of America that they really should become independent.

So, I could break down California county by county and argue the same thing. Replace California with US, and county with state. The argument is exactly the same.

I could easily say that the rural voters are the ones who are out of touch. They are, after all, the minority of voters.

Do you even know how a state government works? So no you couldn´t break it down and argue the same thing since that is not how California or any state is run.

And rural voters are out of touch? with what the Sunday paper? the uber-organic family in San Fran? or ???

Rural sparsely populated areas should not have a bigger voice then densely populated areas. Period. The only reason you like it is because it favors your party. A party on it's death bed.

I did break it down. It's quite easy to see your argument easily scales to other forms of government, even state ones. It's plain as day for anyone who spends more than 5 minutes evaluating the pros/cons of the EC.

Additionally, I was being facetious with the rural voters comment. The notion that 'X population is out of touch' is stale and simply a stupid tactic to define 'real' americans. As if Trump voters are more in touch with reality than coastal elites, what a joke.