DemocraSay

In response to What role should Superdelegates play?.

The 2008 election cycle is shining a spotlight on the Democratic Party’s unpledged party leader and elected official delegates or as they are popularly known, superdelegates. With the race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama close enough that the superdelegate votes could conceivably determine the outcome of the Democratic primary, all eyes are keenly focused on this issue.

Most of the arguments against the use of superdelegates hinge on the fact that they are not required to vote for the candidate that won the popular vote in their state. As a vital step in determining a party candidate for the highest office in the supposedly greatest democracy, this seems speciously undemocratic. The simple fact that America is a democracy might lead one to believe that at the very least:
1) Every person in America gets a vote.
2) Every vote is counted in every election.
3) Every vote holds equal weight.
4) The ballot choice with the most votes wins.

But alas, it is not that easy:
1) Everyone does not have the right to vote in America. For example, if you commit certain crimes and do your time, you cannot vote (whereas if you commit a crime and get away with it, you can).
2) Voters have had their votes invalidated due to technical difficulty with voting equipment, mail-in ballot discrepancies, and most recently in MI and FL, arguments amongst party leaders.
3) Some votes hold more weight than others depending on how populous your state is.
4) We are all familiar with the 2004 popular vote win and election loss of John Kerry.

It would seem that the concept of democracy is easy to grasp but hard to implement. Issue 4) is particularly relevant to the topic at hand since many people see superdelegate votes as holding the power to override the popular vote. Taking a step back to look at the underlying structure of the voting system uncovers the roots of the controversy: it is a crisis of representation. Our country was founded on a similar such crisis: the protest against taxation without representation. So it is no wonder that the founding fathers wrote a schema for representation into the Constitution. They decided that representation should be based on the states. Of course, the founding fathers could have designed a system of representation based on factors other than geography, such as gender, ethnicity, profession, religion, socio-economic status or age. And one might reasonably ask if the state based system was in fact the best choice. I mean, are the interests of a 45 year old, Korean-American, Catholic chef really represented by his 70 year old, Caucasian, Baptist senator just because they are both from Mississippi? All politicians say that they will represent their constituents when they are running, but what they actually do when in office is often another story. Irregardless, the logic behind proportional representation by state serves as a foundation for both the Democratic and Republican primary processes. Some states send delegates pledged to candidates based on the percentage of popular votes the candidates got in the state, while other states have a “winner take all approach” and only send delegates pledged to the candidate that won the popular vote or caucus in that state. In both cases the operative word is pledged. In reality, just like senators, neither the pledged delegates nor the superdelegates can truly be held to vote the way they say that they will vote or the way anyone thinks that they should vote. BUT THAT IS THE NATURE OF REPRESENTATION.

Representatives are not carbon copies of the people they represent; they are autonomous individuals in their own right who theoretically, will make decisions according to their own best judgment. For example, if the day before the Democratic National Convention, one of the candidates was caught on tape physically abusing their child, would the people who voted for them in the primaries and caucuses want their delegates to still vote for them? Should the delegates and superdelegates feel obligated to support a child abusing candidate if they previously got most of the popular vote? If they were representing my feelings then they would not vote for that candidate. This is an extreme example, but I use it to point out the fact that the actions of a delegate might legitimately deviate from that of their constituents although historically both delegates and superdelegates usually do vote in accordance with who got the most popular vote. But in fact, in 1984 when Gary Hart received the majority of delegates although Walter Mondale received the majority of popular votes, it was superdelegate votes that gave Mondale the nomination.

So for me, the crucial question in the superdelegate issue is not, “What role should they play?” I do not have a problem with how they function within the current system. My problem is with the system itself. For me, the crucial questions are: “Do we need delegates at all?” “What is the advantage of having state representatives re-vote on what has already been voted on or caucused by the population at large?” “What value is being added by the convention voting process?” Unlike senators, who make thousands of decisions on behalf of their constituents, delegates are only tasked with making one decision. Therefore, a much better system is for the registered voters in a party to choose their candidate for themselves in nation-wide, simultaneous balloting. A week or so before the convention the party can hold a national Super Tuesday type election (all balloting, no caucuses) to decide the party candidate. As is the case today, the national presidential campaign of the winner will then be launched at the convention.

In conclusion, what I propose is a retooling of the party nominating process so that all delegates are eliminated in exchange for direct decision-making by the people of that party. My hope is that the current crisis of representation will be resolved with a demand from the people to represent themselves.