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Showing Original Post only (View all)Democrats Are Considering Dropping Superdelegates Altogether [View all]
Source: BuzzFeed News
Democratic officials are considering a new proposal to effectively eliminate all superdelegates, a move that would go beyond recommendations put forward late last year by the commission tasked with making the party's presidential nominating process more fair.
Under the current system for choosing a Democratic nominee, around 700 people called superdelegates are entitled to their own delegate to award to the candidate of their choosing, regardless of votes cast making up about 30% of the 2,382 delegates needed to clinch the partys nomination. These superdelegates include members of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic elected officials, and "distinguished" party leaders like former presidents and vice presidents. Superdelegates were a major point of contention during the 2016 primary with many supporters of Bernie Sanders arguing the system unfairly favored Hillary Clinton.
The Unity Reform Commission, formed by Sanders and Clinton to review the partys nominating process, has since proposed a new system to effectively reduce superdelegates by about 60%: Elected officials and distinguished party leaders would remain unpledged superdelegates, able to cast their vote for any candidate. The remaining superdelegates, namely the 447 members of the DNC, would have their delegates bound to the their states primary or caucus vote. (In the case of a second round of voting at a Democratic convention historically a rare occurrence in the partys presidential nominating process all superdelegates would be unbound.)
The 21 members of the Unity Reform Commission agreed upon the superdelegates proposal at a meeting in early December, following four lengthy gatherings over the course of seven months. Those recommendations then moved to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, where members were given a period of six months to put forward a set of final proposals.Democratic officials are considering a new proposal to effectively eliminate all superdelegates, a move that would go beyond recommendations put forward late last year by the commission tasked with making the party's presidential nominating process more fair.
Read more: https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/democrats-are-weighing-a-proposal-to-eliminate?utm_term=.bxZEAWKXm#.ct3NpP3LM