Sanders supporters use email to attack Indiana super delegates

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indiana Democratic primary is still more than two months away, but some supporters of Bernie Sanders are already on the attack.

They’re using email to attack Hillary Clinton supporters.

Indiana will have 92 delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Eighty-three of them will be chosen in the May primary and they must support the winner.

Nine of them are super delegates who are free to support either candidate. They include Cordelia Lewis-Burks, who plans to support Hillary Clinton.

“You and the rest of the super delegates are making a huge mistake,” Lewis-Burks reads from an email sent to her by a Bernie Sanders supporter.

She’s received more than a dozen such emails in recent days. The messages are personal.

“Well, I’ve been called some terrible names and derogatory names as far as race is concerned,” said Lewis-Burks, who is African American.

The Sanders supporters who are sending the emails believe their candidate could win a majority of primary votes and yet lose the Democratic nomination because of the super delegates.

Lewis-Burks shared some of the more mild messages. “I am appalled that you think you can ignore the will of the people,” says one.

“You might as well be a Republican,” said another. “And, yes, that is an insult,” Lewis-Burks added.

“You have been bought and sold by the Democratic Party just like Hillary has been,” another email reads.

Another suggests that voting for Clinton is “throwing your vote away.”

Lewis-Burks, who is vice chair of the Indiana Democratic Party, says she stopped responding to the attacking emails.

“There is a way to win friends and influence people and this is certainly not the way,” she said.

Some of them are coming from Indiana voters, but most are coming from outside the state.

Lewis-Burks does not believe the Sanders campaign is behind the emails.

A majority of super delegates, both here and around the country, are committed to Hillary Clinton.