Joe Scarborough, host of “Morning Joe,” took issue with the Democratic party’s allocation of delegates after candidate Bernie Sanders beat frontrunner Hillary Clinton by 12 percentage points, but lost in overall delegate count.
For Scarborough it points to a “rigged system” and contributes to “voter disenfranchisement”:
“It is a system rigged against voters. It is a system rigged against people that go to voting booths. It is a system rigged against people that go out to caucuses. It is a system rigged in favor of the rich and the powerful and the politically connected.”
“Why does the Democratic party even have voting booths? This system is so rigged.”
On April 10, Wyoming went and caucused for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and Sanders won; 56 percent to 44 percent. However, despite the margin of victory, he tied 7 to 7 in pledged delegates, and, when factoring in superdelegates, lost 11 to 7.
The system that Scarborough is questioning is the Democratic party’s decision to have superdelegates, which proportionally weighs elections in favor of an establishment candidate to keep an outsider or insurgent candidate from getting the nomination.
Superdelegates are party officials that are chosen by the state to represent the party. Most of those delegates have announced who they’re supporting, and so far the tally is 469-31 in favor of Clinton with a couple hundred more, also likely to support Clinton.
Their main function for the delegates is to make sure that the candidate chosen by the voters is electable in the general election.
These superdelegates are not technically bound to vote for whomever they support until the convention, but their overwhelming support for Clinton makes it an almost insurmountable task for Sanders to catch up to the former first lady.
Scarborough’s frustration with the ‘rigged system’ echoes a frustration among the Sanders supporters who are speaking out against the system—some are petitioning their local superdelegates—and some have created a “Superdelegate Hitlist."
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