Sunday afternoon, I received an email from one of the local Ron Paul Meetup coordinators. According to the campaign’s state coordinator, Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who filled all of the delegate positions in Tennessee. In all nine districts in TN he has at least three delegates, the full amount of at-large delegates overall, and more than enough alternative delegates.
Each candidate should have three delegates per district, and a minimum of twelve at-large delegates, for a total of thirty-nine.
Of the other candidates, Fred Thompson did the best; he’s only short two delegates in one district.
Mitt Romney has the three delegates for each district, but is short three at-large delegates.
Mike Huckabee has no delegates in two districts, and only two in two other districts (and is thus short eight total).
John McCain has eleven delegates total.
Rudy Giuliani, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter have no delegates in Tennessee at all.
I’m not entirely clear on what this means for the other candidates, however. It would appear that candidates like Giuliani will appear on the ballot in all districts in the state, regardless of whether they have any delegates or not, since they’ve already qualified based on the ballot access procedures and are listed on the certified candidate list by the Secretary of State.
One way or the other, what is clear is that there are thirteen “superdelegates” who are uncommitted to any candidate who will be sent to the GOP convention from Tennessee, and they can vote for whoever they choose. From the Delegate Election Procedures document on the TN GOP’s web site:
The ballot reflects the names of the presidential candidates a second time only to identify individual delegate candidates committed to the particular candidate. On this part of the ballot, the ballot shall clearly indicate that each voter votes for individual delegate candidates. By the same token, the ballot in each congressional district shall list only those delegate candidates seeking election as a delegate from that district and any at-large delegates. TCA §2-13-311.
In each party’s primary, the voter may cast one (1) vote for his or her preference for candidate for president or for the uncommitted designation. However, TCA §2-13-312 permits the voter to vote for as many delegate candidates as there are to be delegates elected from that congressional district. According to the number allocated for any presidential candidate, the delegate candidate(s) receiving the most votes shall be certified as the delegates to their parties’ national conventions. TCA §2-13-315.
I looked at the sections of the Tennessee Annotated Code (sorry, you’ll have to find the individual sections because I couldn’t figure out how to easily link to them) referenced above (and some others) but I’m still a bit fuzzy:
2-13-312. Number of votes. —
Each voter of the political parties shall cast one (1) vote for such voter’s preference for candidate for president or for the uncommitted designation and shall vote for as many delegate-candidates as there are to be delegates from such congressional district.
That’s all well and good, but 2-13-311 (2) states
(A) Within the vertical columns immediately following and below the entire presidential preference listing for that primary, the names of the presidential candidates shall again appear in vertical columns in alphabetical order according to their surnames. Immediately beneath each presidential candidate’s name, the names of delegate-candidates who are committed to that particular presidential candidate in accordance with §§ 2-13-307, 2-13-308(2), and 2-13-309(a), shall appear vertically in alphabetical order according to their surnames. The “Uncommitted” designation shall appear with an alphabetical vertical listing of those uncommitted delegate-candidates pledged to the last listed presidential candidate.
(B) It is expressly understood and provided that the appearance of presidential candidates’ names as provided in this subdivision (2) is only for the purpose of identifying individual delegate-candidates committed to particular presidential candidates. The ballot shall clearly indicate that each voter is to vote individually for delegate-candidates.
So, the vote cast for the voter’s preference for candidate for president (as allowed in 2-13-312) doesn’t actually mean anything?
Moving right along …
2-13-313. Allocation of elected delegates. —
Delegates elected from a congressional district shall be allocated among the presidential candidates and the uncommitted designation as proportionally as is mathematically possible to the number of votes received in the presidential preference election within such congressional district. If the votes received by a presidential candidate in any congressional district are less than fifteen percent (15%) of the votes cast in such district, no delegates shall be allocated to such candidate and such votes of less than fifteen percent (15%) shall be considered as votes for the uncommitted designation.
OK, so are the delegates elected based on the votes cast for the delegates, or based on the votes cast for the preferred presidential candidate?
2-13-316. Vacancies in delegation. —
Vacancies in the delegation to the national nominating convention of a political party shall be filled in accordance with the rules of the respective party.
Perhaps this means that in a situation where a majority of voters cast their preference votes for Giuliani, but no delegates were available for Giuliani in their district, the GOP would appoint them? Or does it mean that the GOP will appoint delegates for Giuliani, since the Secretary of State has already put him on the ballot?
2-13-317. Binding effect of presidential primary. —
The results of the preferential presidential primary shall be binding on the delegates to the national conventions as provided in this section. The delegates to the national conventions shall be bound by the results of the preferential presidential primary for the first two (2) ballots and shall vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged as provided in § 2-13-307. The delegates shall thereafter be bound to support such candidate so long as the candidate, not to exceed two (2) ballots, has twenty percent (20%) of the total convention vote or until such time the candidate of their party releases them from the results of the presidential preference primary.
So, essentially any (committed) delegate is bound to their candidate until the candidate is doing really poorly, and then they can vote for any candidate they choose. This definitely prevents any committed delegates from Tennessee from voting for Giuliani in the first phases of the convention balloting process.
After reading over this stuff several times, I’m still not clear on what happens with a candidate who has no delegates in the state, but receives more than 15% of the vote in any one district. I would suspect, though, that it’s unlikely that any candidate who was unable to have any substantial number of delegates appear on the ballot across the state is unlikely to do well in the state, though that is far from being an absolute.
When I was in high school, there was a very intelligent older lady who used to come in the McDonald’s where I worked, and I we had many intellectual conversations about all sorts of things over the years. She told me time and time again that I ought to be a lawyer. Any time I spend any amount of time looking at legalese like this, though, I thank my lucky stars I didn’t become one.
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