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So I totally understand that the super delegates include those such as the president, vice president, senators, past presidents, etc., but I was wondering if there was an exact mathematical equation that would explain how there were 712 super delegates for the 2016 Democratic primary.
For example, how was Alabama awarded 7 super delegates of the 2016 Democratic primaries?
Democratic Party's super delegates come from these groups:
Current and former POTUS, VPOTUS, DNC Chair or Democratic leader in the Senate or the House
Current Democratic governor, senator or congressman
Members of the Democratic National Committee
Since you asked about Alabama, the delegates consist of 5 DNC Members, 1 Representative and 1 national Democratic county official.
Basically, it can be deduced that there isn't a fixed number of super delegates. For this year's Democratic primary, there's a list of all unpledged delegates.
This article by Vox explains the concept of super delegates clearly.
Unfortunately, there isn't any equation apart from the composition of super delegates.
