Super Tuesday was not the end

Shortly after the conclusion of Super Tuesday, supporters of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton might as well congratulate themselves and sit on their hands waiting for the inevitable.

Alternatively, those who would vote for another candidate in the 2016 primaries remain responsible for the dignity of themselves as citizens; they must remember to vote.

Voters woke up Wednesday morning to political cacophony, blending the deafening roar of the Republican juggernaut Trump gobbling up seven more states with the twittering screeches of media gulls who call the Bernie Sanders campaign dead, attempting to bloody their beaks.

Meanwhile, amid the noise, Ben Carson quietly exited the race to finally take that nap he’s been after.

Though Super Tuesday is admittedly the most important single day in the primary election season — since its inception no candidate has ever won the nomination without winning the most delegates in Super Tuesday, according to an NPR article published Sunday — Washington is among the majority of the country’s states which have not yet voted.

With final results reported for only 15 out of 50 states, the primaries aren’t over yet.

Furthermore, democratic primaries have thus far been plagued with hollow turnout, just over half of the turnout in 2008. In Nevada, statistics from the Secretary of State’s office showed only approximately 13 percent of registered Democrats voted in the primary, a farce of democracy that can’t be allowed to repeat itself in Whitman County or elsewhere in Washington.

Trump has long seemed like an inevitability for the nomination, given the division within mainstream politics which has easily handed the real estate tycoon a substantial lead.

Clinton, however, had actually been in contest for the nomination with Sanders until victories in seven states during Super Tuesday’s results made her seem all the more inevitable.

Supporters of Sanders still have a chance to shift the math away from Clinton’s favor, but March may well be their last stand.

What is unquestionable is that the road to supplant the front-runners Clinton and Trump is rapidly narrowing. Though Republicans Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have waned chances to rapidly overtake Trump through winner-take-all states, positioning themselves in Florida to take the first of such states, Sanders faces a much more implacable climb amid the proportional allocation of delegates coupled with the bulwark of super delegates supporting Clinton.

Super delegates are party leaders who are allowed to vote for a nominee regardless as to the popular vote. The chair of the Democratic National Convention Debbie Wasserman Schultz famously affirmed suspicions that the super delegates, unique to the Democratic Party, are undemocratic.

“Unpledged delegates exist really so that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they’re running against grassroots activists,” Wasserman Schultz said to CNN’s Jake Tapper in early February.

This does not spell the inevitability that many suggest, and must not discourage anyone hoping for a Sanders nomination.

Firstly, it is not too late to register to vote, and voter registration will be made available at the caucus sites. Congratulations to those who procrastinated in politics and yet may still exercise the most important right and responsibility which defines them as a member of a free country.

The next month is very important for voters in Pullman and in Whitman County. WSU has a wonderfully constructive policy of allowing petition along its malls which has uses beyond yelling evangelicals, and canvasing door-to-door is an extremely effective way to remind people where and how to vote.

Of course, not everyone has the odd blend of passion and mania that sometimes seems necessary to commit to the awkward procedure of stumping for a political candidate.

Republicans in Washington allocate votes based on a primary ballot due mid-May, but Democrats in Washington need only prepare for March 26, when from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. they will gather together to caucus. As an open caucus, voters do not need to register as Democrats to participate, so long as they have not participated in the February Republican caucus.

Pullman alone is split into more than a dozen precincts, with anywhere from two to five of them gathering at any given location. Though the caucus sites are to be determined, the Democratic Party officials representing Whitman County will present the sites in the next few weeks.