I.
Delegate what? Who? Where? If we voters are supposed to be rocking the vote, why all the talk of delegates and superdelegates who will decide our fate? Truth: in a democracy, all votes are equal, except for some. In the U.S., democracy is a representative thing. In other words, we vote for people who do the voting in our place. The alternative is absurd. Imagine if we had to rouse ourselves every morning before work and either laptop or phone in our votes on the national budget or healthcare or the surge. Well, you say, good, then at last there would be healthcare and no damned surge! Right, but we’d be swamped with stuff we didn’t really want to do or deal with every morning before cafe stop. Is that what you really want? It would mean almost no TV and a lot less blogging and bit-torrenting….

This is why the U.S. is more plutocracy than plebocracy, a democracy where rich people do the real voting and “common” people do the real working. Being in politics here has always been a hobby of the rich that basically makes them richer. Doesn’t mean we commons don’t have a say. Just means we have less of a say than we’d sometimes like to have and a lot less than George Bush pretends we have when he talks about “ferdom” and “democrisy” abroad.

The nomination process for political candidates in the U.S. is all about filters, because it is not about electing anyone to anything but about a political party (Democrat, Republican, Green, Socialist, Libertarian) deciding whom it wants to put forward to get the votes of actual people in the general election. From that perspective, it makes perfect sense that party officials and insiders would make the decision. Apart from anarchist parties, which ideologically oppose setting up leadership structures, party decisions are almost always made in hierarchical fashion, where top dogs make the decisions that matter. We common American Democrats and Republicans vote as members of parties that have rules that we didn’t put in pace. The way it has come down is that we vote for representatives called delegates to help decide on the general election nominee. There are, as we all know now, delegates we haven’t voted for and they do a large part of the deciding, too. This is all very far from the occasional and rare “one person one vote”-style elections called plebiscites. A recent major example: the French plebiscite of 2005, where the people were asked to say yes or no to accepting a European constitution. (The majority of course said “non.”)

II.
In America, our delegates decide our fate. So how does it work?

The Democrats
To become the Democratic nominee for president, a candidate has to be nominated by a majority of delegates attending the Democratic National Convention. This year’s convention is being held in Denver, Colorado, the last week of August.

There are a total of 4,049 delegates…as of today. This number could change. If a delegate croaks, switches political parties, double-books the weekend of the convention, etc. The other thing is that the party, as seems likely this year, could decide to change which state’s delegates to include (ie, those from Florida and Michigan, earlier rejected for breaking rules might now be seated). In any case, whichever Democratic nominee has more delegates in his or her corner come August will win the nomination.

The Republicans
The nomination process for Republicans is largely the same as the Democrats. Once again, majority wins. Candidates are nominated at the Republican National Convention, which this year is being held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the first week of September. There are 2,380 total Republican delegates up for grabs… as of now. Again, that could change.

For a closer look at the number of delegates needed to win each party, take a look at CNN where they have set up a great interactive map.

III.
Who Are the Delegates?

The Democrats
The Democratic Party has two types of delegates: pledged delegates and superdelegates. Pledged delegates are selected on the state and local level. They are essentially committed, based on primary and caucus votes cast by “commoner” party members like you and me, to vote for particular candidates. Pledged delegates for candidates no longer in the race (eg, Edwards and Kucinich’s delegates, et al) can be thrown over to help tip one of the remaining candidates over the top.

Superdelegates— the “it” delegates of Democratic Primary ’08— are another matter. These people are Democratic Party insiders (eg, members of Congress, national and state committee members, former presidents and vice presidents). Right now, superdelegates comprise 796 out of the total 4,049 Democratic Party delegates. Courtesy of the Washington Post, here is a little context about how the superdelegate concept was born. “A few decades ago, Democratic leaders felt that sometimes Democratic voters were choosing poor presidential candidates: campaigners who couldn’t win elections, or even if they could, they didn’t please Democratic kingmakers.”

Jimmy Carter, for example, was an obscure candidate who developed so much popular appeal that he essentially forced Democratic Party leaders to accept him as the nominee, even though not everyone was thrilled by it.” Disappointed party representatives would pretty much withdraw from the election, not fully campaigning for such candidates and the party was seen to have weakened nationally as a result, losing generally where it could be winning. So the party changed the rules, giving superdelegates unpledged voting power, allowing them to cast votes for whomever they liked, their votes being equal to each of the pledged delegate votes, which, remember, are each based on hundreds of votes cast by we commoners. Bill Clinton, for example, is a superdelegate. So are Sen. Ted Kennedy and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Georgia Rep. John Lewis.

Theory was that the superdelegates could help steer the party toward solid, competitive candidates and away from Monday morning regrets. Clearly, the theory hasn’t worked so well (see: John Kerry, presidential election, 2004.) So far, it seems Hillary Clinton has led in drawing superdelegate pledges even though Barack Obama has won more pledged delegates. The numbers, however, are swinging all over the place every day and drawing increasing scrutiny from the press and the public. Look for information on who among the superpeople is supporting whom here and here. Also find here a list of so far uncommitted superdelegates.

The Republicans
The Republican Party has two types of delegates: pledged and unpledged. Pledged Republican delegates work like pledged Democrat delegates. They are selected at the local and state level and must indicate support for a particular candidate at the Convention. Most unpledged delegates are also selected at the local and state level, although a few gain this position merely on the strength of their resumes. They may be party chairs or committee members etc.

IV.
Keeping Count

The Democrats
This is where things get (more) complicated. In a nutshell, the Democrats use proportional representation to decide how many pledged delegates are awarded to each candidate. If a candidate wins 30 percent of the vote in a state primary, the candidate wins 30 percent of that state’s pledged delegates. MSNBC uses California’s delegates to break things down.

California Democrats are given 129 state delegates. Clinton won 52 percent of the votes cast. This part seems easy: 129 multiplied by .52 equals 67, so Clinton gets 67 of the statewide delegates and Obama 62. California Democrats, however, also award an additional 241 delegates divvied up among the state’s 53 congressional districts. The tricky part is figuring out who really won each congressional district. Congressional district lines can spread across multiple county lines and county lines can include more than one congressional district line. Holy shite, you say. And we concur. What a mess.

MSNBC: “We know that Clinton, for instance, won Contra Costa County in Northern California. But Contra Costa County encompasses parts of three different congressional districts.” Wha?! News organizations across the board have yet to settle on a way to keep count… because, you know, they’re very busy delivering you other important stories!

The Associated Press (which is used by The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post), CNN, CBS News, NBC News and ABC News all have calculated different numbers.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that superdelegates can change their vote until the very minute they cast it at the convention. Some news organizations, in their count, include superdelegates who have already pledged their support to a particular candidate. Others, like NBC News, don’t. For a better analysis, try this link.

The Republicans
For the Republican Party, each state decides how to allocate pledged delegates. Most states use a “winner take all” system. Some states use a proportional representation system like the one used by the Democrats.

That’s the end for now to this humble guide to delegate madness. Did you make it through? Are you asleep? Wake up! You have blogging and bit-torrenting to do. You can also of course comment below with clarifications or complaints. Please do.

——
Marissa Monroy is a P+P staff writer and a graduate student at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication. The French business and other odd bits concerning plutocracies and plebocracies for which Ms Monroy bears no responsibility come courtesy of ed. John Tomasic.