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Super Delegates - The Ultimate Voting Power
By Cartoon: © Mike Keefe, The Denver Post
Project: Cynthia Kirkeby, ClassBrain, Inc
Apr 16, 2008, 20:13 PST
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| © Mike Keefe, The Denver Post 2008 |
Super Delegates - The Ultimate Voting Power
Super delegates have been in the news because neither of the Democratic candidates have acquired enough delegates to clearly take the nomination. So what are super delegates? They are political figures who not only get a vote in the regular elections, like any other citizen of the United States, these individuals have also been given the right to vote as a delegate, although instead of representing a block of citizens and being required to vote as dictated by the outcome of a populous vote, or caucus, these individuals are are not responsible to any constituency. They can vote anyway they choose; without repercussions.
Who are the Super Delegates? They are public figures like governors, congressional representatives, and former presidents like Bill Clinton ...yes he is one. Here’s a list of most of the super delegates, according to superdelegates.org:
- Democratic members of the House of Representatives
- Democratic Senators
- Democratic governors
- Members of the Democratic National Committee
- Former Democratic presidents and vice-presidents
- Former Speakers of the House
- Former Senate leaders
- Former minority leaders in the House or Senate
- Former chairs of the Democratic National Committee.
According to Jennifer Vanasco of the Visible Vote, super delegates were added by the democratic party in 1980s “to prevent fringe candidates (like, for example, Dennis Kucinich) from whipping up a public frenzy and taking the nomination.” In other words, the politicians didn’t trust the people of the country to make the right decision, so they buffered the voting system with a way for them to sway the vote. Approximately 20% of the delegates at the Democratic convention are super delegates.
Questions to Ponder
- Do you think the super delegate system is fair?
- Bill Clinton gets to vote twice for his wife, once as a citizen in the primaries and once as a super delegate. Do you think this violates our rules of one man, one vote?
- Do you think all of the super delegates should be politicians?
- Is the idea of having delegates represent the population in our elections behind the time?
- Do you think it would be possible to do an election in the United States that did away with all the special voting classes and just used the original concept of one person, one vote to elect our candidate through a truly democratic process?
Learning Links for Super Delegates
© Copyright 2008 by Classbrain.com
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