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So how does the delegate election work?
While the simple process of endorsing either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (albeit indirectly through their Guam delegates) may seem as easy as casting a vote today, it's a little more complicated than that. In total Guam has 13 such delegates that will head the Democratic National Convention in August. Today at the polls local residents chose eight of those delegates, four female and four male.
The ballot provides the opportunity to select your preference for the Democratic presidential nominee, either Obama or Clinton, and then proceed to vote for your eight delegates. Each of these eight delegates, or "pledged delegates", have a half-vote each on the convention floor for a total of four delegate votes, that then leaves us with five more votes on the convention floor, that's where the superdelegates kick in, and things get a little bit more tricky. By the end of the night what will be clear is where the four delegate votes will go, whether to Obama or Clinton.
That's not exactly the case for the superdelegates, which head to the convention unpledged. The superdelegates are not bound at this point to officially announce who they support: the superdelegates (which some of which are up for a vote today) are the party chair, vice-chair, national committeeman and national committeewoman, as well as Guam's delegate to Congress (in this case, current representative Madeleine Bordallo).
Based on the ballot for party officers, what's interesting to note and gives us a bit of an idea on where at least some of the superdelegates stand are Arlene Bordallo, who is running for vice-chair of the Democratic Party of Guam, and also running for a delegate seat showing her pledged support for Senator Clinton. Her running mate for chairman of the party is Joseph Cameron, who has also publicly announced his support for Clinton. Then you have Taling Taitano, running for national committeewoman - she is actually the state advisor for Senator Clinton's campaign on Guam.
So theoretically if they win their party officer elections tonight, that would mean mathematically Clinton would have three guaranteed superdelegate votes. Taking a look at the bigger picture what's really needed in order for Obama or Clinton is the magic 2,025 votes to win the nomination. The latest total delegate count on MSNBC.com speculates Clinton as leading in the superdelegate count at 273 to Obama's 250. However, Obama is leading in the pledged delegate count at 1,490 to Clinton's 1,336. The overall count: Obama 1,740 and Clinton 1,609.
So really it's a close race either way, and both sides are hoping to pick up as many delegates/superdelegates whether in Guam, North Carolina or Indiana. It is apparent in a race this close for the democratic nomination that every delegate counts.
Even in our tiny corner of the world.
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