Superdelegates can, and very likely will, have an impact on the democratic primary process. But how much influence remains to be seen.As Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight writes here, superdelegates are democratic insiders who hold voting power apart from that of ordinary delegates.Silver explains: Superdelegates were created in part to give Democratic party elites the opportunity to put their finger on the scale and prevent nominations like those of George McGovern in 1972 or Jimmy Carter in 1976, which displeased party insiders. While Silver agrees with many progressive voters, who say that the superdelegate system is  profoundly unfair,  he also notes that the amount of influence superdelegates have on the outcome of a primary race depends largely on how close the race is.There are approximately 712 superdelegates. These delegates equal about one-sixth of the 4,763 delegates who will determine the outcome of the primary. In order to win the party s nomination, a candidate needs to secure at least 2,382 delegates.According to Silver: Superdelegates are mathematically relevant when a candidate has 41.2 percent to 58.8 percent of elected delegates. Below that range, a candidate couldn t win a first-ballot majority even with the votes of every superdelegate; above that range, the superdelegates  help wouldn t be necessary to clinch the nomination. To clarify, the following chart was published on FiveThirtyEight, on February 12.The chart shows the percentage of superdelegate votes a candidate would need to win the primary, in correlation to the percentage of regular delegates, which are awarded based on the outcomes of state primary elections.Image credit: screen capture Nate Silver fivethirtyeight.comAs the chart illustrates, the closer the race is, the more impact the superdelegates have on the outcome.Currently Hillary Clinton holds a tremendous lead over Bernie Sanders among pledged superdelegates. Clinton has the support of 362 superdelegates, while Sanders has only captured the support of eight superdelegates thus far.But Silver also points out that superdelegates are free to change their vote at any time during the race, and notes that they often do just that. Unlike elected delegates, superdelegates are unbound to any candidate even on the first ballot. They can switch whenever they like, and some of them probably will switch to Sanders if he extends his winning streak into more diverse states and eventually appears to have more of a mandate than Clinton among Democratic voters. Additionally, Silver states that it s highly unlikely superdelegates would back a candidate who had lost the popular vote by any significant margin, since doing so would likely alienate over half the party s base.So while at the moment it may appear that party insiders are attempting to override the popular vote, it s not likely that the superdelegates will ignore or deny the will of the voters, should they favor Sanders by a significant margin.Silver points to 2008 as an example of how fast things can change. Clinton had a large superdelegate lead over then-senator Barack Obama early on during the 2008 democratic primary, as well. But as the election wore on, several dozen superdelegates changed their original vote from Clinton to Obama. At the same time, uncommitted superdelegates came out in support of his candidacy.So while superdelegates definitely have the power to influence the outcome of an election, especially in the case of very close race, it s important to keep in mind that voters also have the power to influence the decisions of the superdelegates.View a state-by-state list of democratic superdelegates here. Image credit: Hillary Clinton photo, Marc Nozell via Wikimedia Commons; Bernie Sanders photo, Gage Skidmore, via Flckr.com 