Super delegates: Anathema to democracy?

UPDATE: Thanks to Regina Kreger for following up on this, the Post is clearly in error in what it wrote (below). Maryland apportions 46 of the delegates by Congressional district and 24 are divvied up based on the statewide vote. That leaves 29. It's still a little unclear as to whether ultimately 20 or 29 of the 99 delegates are "super delegates". It seems that 9 of those are nominally super delegates but yet are bound to vote according to the results of the primary (i.e., proportionately).

Here's my original post. --Dwight, posted 2/3/08

Did anyone else catch this in last Monday's Post? I found it quite shocking and disheartening. We've all heard about the 'super delegate' phenomenon... According to this (below) when Dems vote on the 12th we will be selecting only 46 delegates out of Maryland's total of 99 that will attend the convention in Denver. So that means we will NOT be choosing 53 of the delegates -- more than half.

What's with that?? I thought MD was now a non-smoking state!!

Maryland (link to Washington Post article of 1/28/08)

The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Those registered in the Democratic and Republican parties can vote in their party's primary. The primaries include the presidential and congressional contests and nonpartisan school board races.

Maryland will send 99 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Of those, 46 will be chosen Feb. 12, and the rest will be chosen by the party. A candidate must get more than 15 percent of the vote to receive delegates.

On the GOP side, 37 delegates will go the convention, of which 24 will be chosen Feb. 12 and the rest by the party.

--Dwight posted 2/1/08

dwightrholmes	Latest page update: made by dwightrholmes , Feb 3 2008, 10:45 AM EST (about this update About This Update added Regina's update on super delegates - dwightrholmes 97 words added view changes - complete history)
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