Although Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming Democratic caucus with 56 percent of the vote, he received the same number of delegates that Hillary Clinton did. Sanders supporters are hoping to change that.
Sanders supporter and Democratic National Committeeman elect Jon Gardzelewski said state delegates supporting Sanders have filed a formal petition with the Democratic National Committee challenging the apportionment of Wyoming delegates to the national convention.
Both Sanders and Clinton have seven Wyoming delegates from the April caucus, but due to support from super delegates Clinton picked up 11 overall delegates to Sanders 7.
Gardzelewski claims that a caucus counting error means that Sanders should have received eight delegates to Clinton’s six. But he added that if Sanders delegates win their petition, Wyoming’s support would be cut in half and the state would lose its four super delegates. Gardzelewski said that Wyoming Democrats supported Sanders and the delegate count should reflect that.
“So we are looking to find a way to kind of make this system work and at a small level make democracy work.”
If the petition is successful Sanders would get four Wyoming delegates and Clinton three. While it may seem like a small matter, Gardzelewski added that it’s important that the party doesn’t lose the number of young voters Sanders attracted.
“The party has a big surge of young fresh energy to get involved in the governance process and part of the problem we see is that they immediately feel disenfranchised.”
Gardzelewski hopes that the DNC rules in a couple of weeks.
