The Republican and Democratic primary is turning out to be the most interesting in recent memory in which establishment candidates are pitted against insurgent candidates in both Democratic and Republican contests. This presidential election is also historic in that a woman or a black man could be the next president. Should Hillary Clinton win the presidency, Bill Clinton would become the first former president to also hold the position of first gentlemen. Should Barak Obama win, he would be delivering the dream of Martin Luther King for all Americans and inspiring others to our great American social experiment. As it turned out on Super Tuesday, making history was not to be rushed. Super Tuesday failed to anoint a clear Democratic frontrunner as Clinton and Obama ended in a practical draw as far as delegate counts were concerned. On the Republican side, John McCain, whose campaign was written off as dead early on, emerged from the ashes to become the Republican frontrunner despite getting no support from the evangelical and social conservative base of his party.

If the Democratic contest continues without producing a clear frontrunner by the Democratic Convention, there is a risk that Democratic superdelegates, made up of current and former elected and party officials, may end up anointing the Democratic nominee contrary to the intent of the popular vote. Essentially, if there is a tie in the number of delegates the Democratic rules permit the candidate to woo the superdelegates for votes. The process involves closed-door negotiations between the candidate and superdelegates and arm twisting by the candidate or other superdelegates. This process is rarely explained in full detail by the news media except for an occasional gloss over; consequently, and to no one’s surprise, the voting public is unaware that such a nontransparent, undemocratic and unaccountable mechanism exists within their Democratic nomination process. This process clearly benefits Hillary Clinton whose husband, a former president and superdelegate, is likely to pressure other superdelegates to vote for his wife. Democrats would be outraged if they knew what this process entailed—that superdelegates could skew the nomination in a cigar smoke-filled room!

Let us hope that the party that complains most about the evils of voter suppression does not become the party that engages in the very evil it condemns. The voters who have rallied support behind Obama—many of whom are first time voters—are the very people who feel that their vote can make a difference in the election. Not carrying out the Democratic voter intent (assuming Obama wins the nomination) is not just damaging to Democratic voters but to our democratic institution as a whole. At a time when the integrity in and confidence of democratic institution has been low, this is not the time to permit unaccountable superdelegates to run roughshod over the people’s vote. Neither should the primary voters of Michigan and Florida be completely disenfranchised of their votes. So much of our democracy is riding on this year’s election that we owe it to ourselves to truly live up to our democratic values and not merely pay lip service to it.