Who are these power-snatching "super" delegates?

Photos: Cheryl Biren-Wright and "serlingrod"

With neither Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton reaching the minimum amount of delegates to be elected presidential nominee of the Democratic party, the final decision will be left to around 800 party members known as "superdelegates". Does that mean months of campaigning, vote counting and bickering were wasted on less than one percent of the Democratic electorate? A superdelegate answers. But first, a brief explanation for those of us who are left a little confused.

American political parties uses a tiered system to elect their presidential candidate. Firstly, party supporters vote in caucuses and primaries, as they're doing in the US now. These votes turn into delegate counts, of which there are 3,253 in the Democratic party and 2,380 in the Republican party. Each delegate represents around 10,000 individual voters. A frontrunner with a great lead usually emerges during this time, but this year neither has managed to do so, meaning the dual continues to the next round.

The result of the Democratic race now relies on the ballots of the superdelegates - party members. There are around 795 of these, which makes up around a fifth of all delegates. Adding the delegates and the superdelegates together comes to 4,048, and to win the final nomination, a candidate needs over 50% of this number. This equates to over 2,025 delegate votes. Obama is currently leading with 1,723.5, while Clinton lags behind with 1,592.5.

The Republican party does not have superdelegates.

"I just don't think we have the right to make that decision"

Constance Borde is the vice president of Democrats Abroad and a superdelegate. She lives in Paris.

Superdelegates are people who have already been elected into the Democratic Party at some point. Until 1968 it was only superdelegates who chose the nominee. But then the system changed to make it open to the public. Our votes don't usually matter because the results from the caucuses and primary elections would normally choose the nominee. But this time, well, it's never happened that it's gone this far. The people don't seem to be able to choose a candidate. Se we need to have a look at who they seem to want.

As a superdelegate you can place your vote at any point and you can also change it before the deadline. My vote goes for Obama because my constituency voted 71% for him. I think he's terrific. But if I find out that Clinton runs ahead then I'd be happy to change it. I do think Obama will win because he's so far ahead with the elected delegates [non-superdelegates] and also with the popular vote. I think they [superdelegates] will have to vote for Obama in the end. But you never know. They might say "yes, he's ahead, but she's really tough and a better candidate".

Both of the candidates have been calling me [to vote for them]. I've had the Clinton team on the phone quite a lot. They ask you what your pros and cons are for the candidate, and ask you if you want to change your vote now. Clinton's in a position to put more pressure on, and has Bill helping her do that. Plus she was a great senator and has worked tirelessly, so she deserves a bit of special attention. But...Obama has captured the hearts of a lot of people.

It's tricky for us. We've got an online dialogue going on about how to end this. It would be good if we could have our candidate now. We didn't want Hillary to pull out before, but now...it hasn't advanced her winning the last state she's likely to win. I can't see why she's continuing. I've personally searched my soul trying to figure it out. She's really betting on the superdelegates now. But I just don't think we have the right to make that decision."

The delegate count so far

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