By Andrew Howard ’17
THE ROUNDUP
According to dictionary.com, a super delegate is an unelected Democatic party delegate who is free to support any candidate for the presidential nomination at the party’s national convention.
The problem with this is the word “unelected.” Why are we allowing people the party picks to have votes at the convention?
Superdelegates have no obligation to vote for who their constituents want; they have complete freedom.
So my real question is, why is the party allowed to give authority to people that aren’t actually elected?
In an opinion article Sally Kahn wrote for CNN said that it is in the Democratic party that the outsized power and lack of accountability of superdelegates is supremely, well, undemocratic.
I agree with this statement. A democracy gives the people power, and super delegates give the parties power, not the people.
Super delegates have been a popular topic in this election. Some people think that super delegates is what hurt Sen. Bernie Sander’s campaign.
Sanders complained that many super delegates pledged their votes to Hillary Clinton before he was even in the race, and if they switched he would still have a chance.
Kahn also says that the Democratic party’s superdelegates exist to preserve the power and influence of the Democratic party’s elite.
This is exactly why they shouldn’t exist: it allows the party to always have the person it think represents them best be the nominee, not who the people actually want.
Donald Trump is not the most popular candidate in the Republican party. I think if Republicans had super delegates, someone else may have won the nomination.
Clearly, the people wanted Trump, and as such he deserved the nomination. But with super delegates the party may not have chosen them.
Part of the problem is that Congress has no say in how primaries are done. Without regulation, the parties can do whatever they want, and that is wrong.
The solution would be a standard primary for all parties, and if that happens, then the people will get what they want.
