Democrats mull doing away with superdelegates

First of all, what are superdelegates?

When a Democratic candidate wins the primary (or caucus) in a state, all of the delegates from that state are committed to vote for the winning candidate at the convention.

In addition to the committed delegates, the Democrats have many convention delegates selected because they are party officials or elected officeholders. These delegates are not committed to a candidate. In the Democratic party they are called superdelegates.

The use of superdelegates by Democrats at their political conventions is another way the party can control nominations at their national convention by having a large number of delegates who are free to vote for a candidate other than the one selected by voters.

It is just another example of why the Democratic Party is often not democratic.

Some have said the use of super delegates by Democrats came about in an attempt to prevent someone like former Alabama Governor George Wallace (or maybe another peanut farmer from Georgia) from winning the nomination.

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