by Jonelle Knox

If you are voting Republican in the 2008 election, you are pretty lucky. At this point, you pretty much know who you have as a candidate to vote for in the general election. If you are voting Democratic, well, thats another story...

What I want to do for readers is to break down the process of what is going on in this crazy political election. What is a delegate? What is a super-delegate? Who are these people?

Delegates from the major political parties are involved in the selection of candidates for President of the United States by such assemblies as a convention. Some of the officials involved in the process are called super-delegates.

Here is the breakdown per party:

Democratic Party

The Democratic party of the United States of America utilizes pledged delegates and super-delegates. A candidate for the Democratic nominee must win a majority of combined delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention to be held in Denver, Colorado, in August 2008.

Pledged delegates are elected or chosen at the state or local level with the understanding that they will support a particular candidate at the convention. Pledged delegates are, however, not actually bound to vote for that candidate; thus, the candidates are allowed to periodically review the list of delegates and eliminate any of those they feel would not be supportive. Currently, there are 3,253 pledged delegates.

Of the 4,049 total Democratic delegates, 796 are super-delegates, which are usually Democratic members of Congress, governors, former U.S. Presidents, and other party leaders. They are not required to indicate a preference for a candidate.

The Democratic Party uses a proportional representation to determine how many delegates each candidate is awarded in each state. For example, a candidate who wins 40 percent of a states vote in the primary election will win 40 percent of that states delegates; however, a candidate must win at least 15 percent of the primary vote or the candidate wins no delegates. If a candidate wins 14 percent of the primary election, they receive zero delegates. There is no process for winning super-delegates, since they can vote for whomever they please. A candidate needs to win a simple majority of 2,025 total delegates to earn the Democratic nomination.

Republican Party

The Republican Party of the United States of America utilizes a similar system with slightly different terminology, employing pledged and unpledged delegates. Of the total 2,380 Republican delegates, 1,719 are pledged delegates who, as with the Democratic Party, are elected at the state or local level. To become the Republican Party nominee, the candidate must win a simple majority of 1,191 of the 2,380 total delegates at the Republican National Convention to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in September 2008.

A majority of the unpledged delegates are elected much like the pledged delegates and are likely to be committed to a specific candidate. Many of the other unpledged delegates automatically claim the delegate status either by virtue of their position as a party chair or national party committee person. This group is known as unpledged Republican National Committee (RNC) member delegates.

The process by which delegates are awarded to a candidate will vary from state to state. Many states use a winner-take-all system, where popular vote determines the winning candidate for that state, while a few others use a proportional representation. While the RNC does not require a 15 percent minimum threshold, individual state parties may, however, impart such a threshold.

The unpledged RNC member delegates are free to vote for any candidate and are not bound by the electoral votes of their state. The majority of the unpledged delegates (those who are elected or chosen) are technically free to vote for any candidate; however, they are likely to be committed to one specifically.

Rationale for Super-Delegates

The Democratic Party established this system partly in response to the nominations of George McGovern in 1972 (McGovern had only 37.5 percent of the popular vote) and Jimmy Carter in 1976 (Carter was a dark-horse candidate with little national experience). Super-delegates were eventually implemented in 1984.

Super-delegates are designed to act as a check on ideologically extreme or inexperienced candidates. It also gives power to people who have a vested interest in party policies: elected leaders. Because the primary and caucus voters do not have to be active members of the party (in New Hampshire, they can sign up and sign out, going-and-coming at the polls), the super-delegate system has been called a safety-valve.

Are you more confused? What is interesting is that everyone I have a conversation with regarding the 2008 presidential election basically says the same thing: Lets eliminate delegates, super-delegates, electoral votes, primaries, general elections, etc. and simply have one votethe vote of the American people. Lets get to a point where one day we have one election, and the candidate with the most votes is the winner and becomes our president. Though we may never see this in our lifetime, it is important that we set the foundation for the next generation to continue to fight for a truly fair system, which would be the popular vote system.