| Marks said: Wow US politics is harder to understand than trigonometry. I have no idea what all this delegate/primary shit really means. In Canada you go out on voting day and pick the party you want, that's about it. No primaries or anything. But I am cheering for Dr. Paul, so this is good news if you say he's doing well. |
Essentially:
- In August, the Republican party will meet in Tampa, Florida, to vote on who they want to nominate to run in the national elections.
- Each state sends representatives to vote on their behalf at the convention in Florida.
- These representatives are called delegates. The number of delegates that each state has depends on how important that state is to the Republican party (basically, how many registered Republicans are in that state). Sometimes the party "punishes" states for breaking rules, and reduces the states delegates (one example being Florida, which was punished because it was a Winner-Take-All before Super Tuesday (more below), and so the RNC (republican national committee) halved the number of delegates that Florida could send).
- Each state has its own Republican party. They basically run all the affairs of the Republican party in that state. It is the state parties which decide how the delegates will be selected, the dates and locations for doing so, that kind of thing. So, the Florida Republican party set the date, said it would be a primary, and said that the delegates would be winner take all.
- The two main ways of selecting delegates are either primaries, which work like how you talked about in Canada, people go and vote, and the results of that lead to the delegates going to Florida; the other way is via caucus. In a caucus, you first vote for who you want to be a delegate for your county. These delegates will then be voted for, at a later date, to move on to district level. Finally, those district level delegates are revoted on for state. Those state delegates go on to Tampa.
- Delegates can be portioned out in different ways. Some states are proportional, where the number of delegates matches the number of votes. Others are winner-takes-all, so the person with the most votes gets all the delegates. Some states are a mixture - with half the delegates going to the winner, the other half proportional. Some states have the delegates tied to districts, or counties - so, you just have to win at county level to pick up some delegates.
- Delegates can also be bound, or unbound. If a delegate is bound, then they must vote for who they are told to vote for by the state party. If a delegate is unbound, then they can vote for whoever once they get to Tampa. If a delegate is bound to a candidate and that candidate drops out, that delegate becomes unbound (neither Santorum nor Gingrich have officially dropped out - they've only suspended their campaign, so the delegates are still bound).
- If, in Tampa, the delegates all vote and no majority is found to support a candidate, the convention becomes "brokered". Under these circumstances, delegates are no longer bound, and another vote is held. Now, the delegates can vote for whoever they want. More and more rounds of voting are conducted until a winner is found. Paul's campaign strategy has been to create a brokered convention in Tampa, as this is his strongest chance of winning.
- As you cannot legally force somebody to vote, bound delegates are actually allowed to abstain in the first round. This means that if you're a Paul supporter, but you're bound by your state party to vote for Romney, you can choose to not participate in the first round at all. This is a little known fact, mainly because the media refuses to tell anyone about it. This is why Paul's success in Nevada and Massachusetts are so important: not only does this increase Paul's delegates, but it directly reduces Romney's (and Massachusetts, too, Romney's home state).
In short, yeah, it is complicated. Canada's is an easier system. However, it because of the complexities of the system that candidates like Paul are able to have any success at all.
