Jane Sanders: The Super Delegate System Isn’t Fair
Jane Sanders, wife of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, said there's no doubt that the closed primaries have kept a substantial number of votes from her husband, and said the election system needs to be overhauled.
After major defeat in four states during Tuesday night’s East Coast primaries, Bernie Sanders is setting his sights on June’s Golden State competition. His wife, Jane Sanders, joined the FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto to discuss the 2016 race.
She first responded to Donald Trump’s comments about the Democratic Party mistreating her husband as she clarified his party affiliation.
“Bernie is not running as an independent. He decided early on to run as a Democrat and he’s running as a Democratic nomination. Now, Donald Trump has a point. The electoral process, the way it’s conducted now, in both parties is not good. It’s not Democratic. It’s not smart. So we want to change the electoral process by having there be open primaries, same day registration – if Independents can vote there’s no doubt that the results in the Democratic process at least would be very different,” she said.
Sanders then voiced her opposition to the super-delegate system.
“It doesn’t seem fair that super-delegates could play such an outsized role. We learned in a Democracy it’s one person one vote -- evidently not in the primary system. So we don’t like the concept of the super-delegates it’s … pretty much an insurance policy for the establishment that they can make sure that the primary doesn’t go array. I think that the Republicans over the last few months have been wishing they had it as Donald Trump has moved forward but now it looks like both parties will have to deal with the will of the people.”
She also dismissed complaints that Bernie is helping Republicans win the presidential election by not dropping out of the race.
“We may be spoiling their day but we’re not spoiling the race. The fact is there are very different visions for America between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. What we need to do is we need to let votes in every state, 10 states still haven’t voted, have the opportunity to support the candidate of their choice and support the agenda they want the nation to follow,” she said.
While Democratic voter participation is down in 2016 versus 2008, and a third of recently polled Sanders supporters said they would have a hard time supporting Clinton, she said the race is “all about systemic change.”
“That includes the electoral system in terms of how it is set up and how it is carried out. It is also about voter participation. We are bringing millions. Bernie is bringing millions of people into the process.” She said.