Delegates

A delegate is someone who attends or communicates the ideas of or acts on behalf of an organization at a meeting or conference between organizations, which may be at the same level or involved in a common field of work or interest.

Organizations may hold conventions where the membership from different parts of the organization is assembled. Delegates attend the convention to represent their part of the organization.

For example, an organization may be national in scope and consist of many local member clubs. Such an organization may hold an annual meeting where each local club can send delegates, or representatives to vote on behalf of the club, to the national convention.

Delegate is the title of a person elected to the United States House of Representatives to serve the interests of an organized United States territory, at present only overseas or the District of Columbia, but historically in most cases in a portion of North America as precursor to one or more of the present states of the union. Delegates have powers similar to that of Representatives, including the right to vote in committee, but have no right to take part in the floor votes in which the full house actually decides whether the proposal is carried.

A similar mandate is held in a few cases under the style Resident commissioner.

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.

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