Does No One Realize That Pledged Delegates Are NOT Bound?

[stopbush]

Source Wikipedia:

The Democratic Party uses pledged delegates and superdelegates. A candidate for the Democratic nomination must win a majority of combined delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention.

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 4,051 pledged delegates.

Of the 4,765 total Democratic delegates, 714 are superdelegates, which are usually Democratic members of Congress, Governors, former Presidents, and other party leaders and elected officials. They are not required to indicate 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% of a state's vote in the primary election will win 40% of that state's delegates. However, a candidate must win at least 15% of the primary vote in order to receive any delegates. There is no process to win superdelegates, since they can vote for whomever they please. A candidate needs to win a simple majority of total delegates to earn the Democratic nomination.

* The idea that super delegates don't count because they don't vote until the convention is also technically true of pledged delegates as well *

[w4rma]

1. Yup. FBI indictments can turn them. (nt)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Everybody clap

[KingFlorez]

10. Mmmmhmmm

Whatever helps you sleep at night, darling.

[rock]

12. Or even something a lot more likely

Like (say) a flying saucer invasion where they kidnap Hillary. Yep, a lot more believable!

[DURHAM D]

2. Everyone knows this so

what is your point?

[stopbush]

4. Everybody doesn't know it.

But the point is that technically, NO delegate is bound to vote a certain way at the convention. If you're going to aver that a super delegate commited to Hillary might switch their vote to Sanders, then you also need to aver that any pledged delegate pledged to Sanders could also switch their vote to Hillary.

Ergo, it's a specious argument to say that one cannot count super delegates in June while one can count pledged delegates.

[Ash_F]

3. I did not know that. I thought they were bound for the first vote at least.

[Avalux]

5. It doesn't matter to Hillary Inc. They want to WIN at all costs.

That means ignoring precedence and the rules in place. Who cares?

I think people might really enjoy Hillary strapping on some boxing gloves and going in the ring with Trump. Maybe the presidency should be determined by a boxing match - voting be damned. It would be appropriate for this dystopian society we've become.

[Cheese Sandwich]

6. Are you suggesting maybe it was pledged delegates who switched over to Hillary tonight

to put her over the top for the nomination? Not superdelegates?

[stopbush]

8. No. If a pledged delegate from Campaign A was to be stupid enough

to announce they would be voting for Campaign B, they would simply be replaced with a different person by Campaign A.

[tritsofme]

7. They are treating the fact that we will not have a nominee until one is nominated at the convention

as some sort incredible revelation, when in fact it is no different than any other election year.

These Berner bitter clingers are sad and pathetic.

[stopbush]

11. The fact is that no delegate - pledged or super - gets to vote until the convention.

And they all vote at the same time on the first ballot.

Sanders says you can't count the supers because they don't vote until the convention, and that they could change their mind and switch their vote.

But the same is true of the pledged delegates. They are not bound to vote a certain way.

Campaigns have a high degree of confidence that the people sent to the convention as pledged delegates will vote for the candidate they were sent to represent because they are typically partisan supporters of that candidate. On the other hand, super delegates commit to a candidate for whom they are typically already a supporter. Both pledged and super delegates strongly support the candidates they are supporting. So why make the claim that super delegates would switch their vote any more readily than would a pledged delegate?