Republican superdelegates [View all]

[Recursion]

I thought this was a pretty good write-up

http://www.bustle.com/articles/141611-does-the-gop-have-superdelegates-the-republican-partys-nomination-rules-are-different-this-year

The GOP, however, has decided to establish fewer superdelegates than the Democrats. In the Republican Party, the only people who get superdelegate status are the three members of each state’s national party. This means that in the GOP, superdelegates are only about 7 percent of the total number of delegates.

The more important distinction, though, is that Republican superdelegates do not have the freedom to vote for whichever candidate they please. The national Republican Party ruled in 2015 that their superdelegates must vote for the candidate that their state voted for, and that’s the biggest difference between Republican and Democratic superdelegates.

In general, superdelegates are a way for the party elite to exert additional influence over the nomination process. If voters were on the verge of nominating a candidate who the party felt didn’t have a good shot at winning the general election, the superdelegates might step in and tip the scales.

That could conceivably happen this year on the Democratic side. However, it’s simply not possible for Republican superdelegates to override the wishes of Republican voters. Thanks to the rules the national GOP has established, Republican “superdelegates” aren’t very “super” at all.

Interestingly, this still can actual "distort" the vote, because it gives smaller states proportionally more say in the nomination process.