(CNN)– The Democratic Party’s primary process is alienating potential voters and is weighted to favor an establishment candidate, Jane Sanders, wife of Bernie Sanders, said Wednesday.
But she stopped short of calling the contest “rigged” in favor of front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign, a term Donald Trump has used to describe the Republican race.
“We’re saying it’s wrong,” she told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on “CNN Newsroom.” “We’re saying it’s not a democratic way to carry out an election.”
“You have to admit, the way that they’re doing things in terms of superdelegates and in terms of how delegates are put out there doesn’t make a lot of sense to the average person,” Sanders said. “We understood those are the rules, we’re playing by the rules. We’re not complaining about it.”
A Brooklyn native like her husband, Sanders also questioned New York state primary rules, which call for voters to register at least 25 days before an election in order to participate. For those already registered but wanting to change party affiliation, the deadline was October 9.
“I thought we were trying to reinvigorate our democracy,” Sanders said. “We’re bringing a lot of new people into the party and it’s really too bad that they’re shutting the door on them.”
She also claimed the Democratic Party establishment had kept the campaign in the dark about miscounted results in Colorado, where Sanders, according a Denver Post report earlier this week, had been quietly awarded another delegate.
“We just heard from the media on Monday that Denver had miscounted the results in 10 precincts,” Sanders told Baldwin.
“(The state party) found out. They called the Clinton campaign. They didn’t bother to tell us. We heard from the media this week,” she said. “We’re used to being non-establishment, we’re used to having them be not really in our corner. So it’s not a surprise, but it’s something that should change.”
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