This is part thirty-nine of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
CONNECTICUT
Election type: primary
Date: April 26
Number of delegates: 28 [10 at-large, 15 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: at-large/automatic delegates: proportional
congressional district delegates: winner-take-most/winner-take-all by congressional district
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 20% (statewide, for at-large/automatic delegates)
2012: winner-take-most primary
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Changes since 2012
Compared the changes made to the Connecticut Republican Party delegate allocation method from 2008-12, the alterations made for the 2016 cycle are minor bordering on non-existent.
Despite seeing Democrats in the Nutmeg state government in 2011 move the presidential primary back from early February 2008 to late April 2012, Connecticut Republicans pushed forward with a plan to shift from a truly winner-take-all allocation plan to a more proportional method. That is "despite" since the primary moved to a later date, after the proportionality window had closed. In other words, the change was not necessary to comply with Republican National Committee rules for 2012. That plan called for both a winner-take-all element on the congressional district level and a proportional component statewide (if no candidate received a majority of the vote).
But that was 2012, and those were substantial changes. For 2016, the Connecticut Republican Party has only slightly tinkered with its rules.
The one big change?
A new section has empowered the state party chairman to fill any delegate slots awarded to the uncommitted option on the ballot (assuming "uncommitted" clears the qualifying threshold). While new, Section 17.H is more contingency planning than anything else; an insurance policy should "uncommitted" qualify.
Thresholds
Given scant changes, the ground rules are largely the same for Connecticut Republicans in 2016 as they were in 2012. The only difference is that the competitive phase of the race will stretch to late April on the calendar, unlike 2012. As the rules are the same, there is a qualifying threshold, but only under certain conditions. First, a candidate must receive at least 20 percent of the vote in order to qualify for any delegates in the Connecticut primary. But reaching that barrier only qualifies a candidate for a share of the states 13 at-large and automatic delegates. That is just a proportional share of a little less than half of the total number of delegates apportioned state Republicans by the RNC.
However, that proportional allocation of that group of delegates only holds if no one candidate wins a majority of the statewide vote. In the event that one candidate take a majority statewide, that candidate would be allocated all 13 at-large and automatic delegates.
There is, then, a qualifying threshold, but it is superseded by the winner-take-all trigger if a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the statewide vote. Additionally, there is no rule prohibiting the backdoor winner-take-all allocation of all 13 at-large and automatic delegates should only one candidate surpass the 20 percent qualifying threshold (given the equation described above and presumably assuming a large field of candidates).
Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
The above thresholds affect just the allocation of the 13 at-large and automatic delegates. Assuming a proportional allocation of those delegates -- no one receives a majority of the vote statewide -- then the allocation equation divides each candidates share of the statewide vote by the total qualifying vote (just those over 20% rather than the total number of votes cast).
Fractional delegates from that calculation would be rounded to the nearest whole number. Those .5 and above would be round up and those below .5 would be rounded down.
Should there be an unallocated delegate due to rounding, the Connecticut Republican Party bylaws call for that slot to go to the winner of the statewide vote. Interestingly, there is no provision in the rules dealing with a rounding result that leads to an overallocation of delegates. There is no description laying out the procedure for removing the superfluous delegate from a particular candidate's total.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Matters are simpler with regard to the allocation of the congressional district delegates. Like Wisconsin or South Carolina before it, Connecticut Republicans allocate all three delegates to the plurality winner of a congressional district. There are no thresholds involved. A candidate need not win 20% of the vote to qualify for those three delegates. Having 19 percent of the vote, for example, is sufficient to claim all three congressional district delegates so long as that is the highest vote share in a given district. With a later primary and a winnowed field, however, such a winning share becomes less likely.
Binding
At-large and automatic delegates are bound to the majority winner statewide or to their respective candidates under a proportional allocation through the first ballot at the national convention. It is less clear whether congressional district delegates are bound for the same duration. The only mention of how long delegates are bound is in the section of the rules detailing the allocation of the at-large delegates (and only refers to "delegate[s]"). When the rules shift into a discussion of the allocation of congressional district delegates in a subsequent section, there is no provision detailing the length of the bond.
This sounds more provocative than it is in practice. And that is due to the way that delegates are selected. Connecticut is one of the states that chooses delegates from slates submitted by the various campaigns. If a candidate has filed a full slate of delegates and there is a majority winner statewide who also sweeps the congressional districts then the mystery is gone. There really is no selection so much as all the delegate slots are filled by the winner's slate.
There is only a choice in so much as there is 1) a proportional allocation in which delegates are being pulled from multiple slates or 2) a candidate has either filed too few or no delegates with the state party. The candidates and their campaigns choose the slates, but the state party at its May state central committee meeting selects which delegates from those slates fill the candidates' allocated slots. Unlike the majority of states where candidates have no direct influence over the delegate selection process, Connecticut Republicans allow for candidate input on the matter. Since the candidates have input in the matter, their delegates are likely to be with them on the first ballot (and beyond).
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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Showing posts with label proportionality rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label proportionality rules. Show all posts
Monday, April 18, 2016
Friday, March 25, 2016
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEW YORK
This is part thirty-seven of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
NEW YORK
Election type: primary
Date: April 19
Number of delegates: 95 [11 at-large, 81 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional (but with majority winner-take-all trigger statewide and at the congressional district level)
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 20%
2012: proportional primary
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Changes since 2012
There are three main differences between the delegate allocation/selection plan the New York Republican Party used in 2012 and how the process will operate in 2016. Two of those are more visible changes than the third alteration.
The easiest of the 2016 changes to spot is the positioning of the New York primary on the 2016 presidential primary calendar. As compared to 2012, the primary for 2016 in the Empire state is one week earlier. But the route to that one week change took a winding path. First, the 2011 law setting the primary for April 24 expired at the end of 2012. That caused the election law to reset and the primary date to revert to the first Tuesday in February, a date not compliant with national party rules. By summer 2015, it looked as if the New York primary would once again end up among a group of contiguous mid-Atlantic and northeastern states at the end of April. But that April 26 date fell right in the middle of Passover week and forced the state legislature to consider a date one week earlier, April 19. That bill ultimately passed the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Cuomo.
While the primary date was changed in that legislation, so too, was the method of delegate allocation and selection. As was the case with Arizona, New York is a state where the line is somewhat blurred between which entity -- state government or state party -- determines the method of delegate allocation and selection. In the grand scheme of things, the state party tends have the final say in the matter. If state law called for one thing and the state party wanted another, then the RNC rules (not to mention the courts when these sort of conflicts arise and end up in that arena) give precedence to the state party rule.
But there is no conflict between state law and state party rules in New York. In fact, the changes the New York Republican Party made to its rules for allocation and selection made their way into the aforementioned legislation moving the primary date and became law when the bill was signed.
From an allocation angle, the changes are minimal. New York was "2012 proportional" four years ago despite the fact that its presidential primary fell outside of the proportionality window. All that entailed was a proportional allocation of the statewide/at-large delegates coupled with a winner-take-all component at the congressional district level. That was "proportional" under the 2012 RNC delegate rules.
Yet, in 2016, despite again being outside of the early March proportionality window, New York Republicans have opted for a "2016 proportional" plan. The same rules apply to the at-large delegates awarded based on the statewide results, but now the congressional district delegates are not allocated in a strictly winner-take-all manner. Instead, under certain conditions, the allocation of the three delegates in each congressional district are allocated proportionally and under others, winner-take-all. [More on that below.] For now, it is sufficient to say that the New York congressional district delegates are more likely to be divvied up between candidates in 2016 than was true in 2012.
On the subject of congressional district delegates, one related item that has changed since 2012, is that New York Republicans will be operating under a more standard procedure than was the case four years ago. During the last cycle, New York was apportioned delegates by the RNC as if it had 27 congressional districts. However, due to redistricting-triggered uncertainty over the map of those districts, New York Republicans were forced to use the old, pre-census 29 district map. This resulted in a two delegate per district apportionment under the old map rather than a three delegate per district plan under a new 27 district map. That, in turn, had the effect of shifting more delegates into the at-large pool to be allocated based on the statewide results.
Absent the 2012 redistricting issues, New York is back to the standard alignment between the delegates apportioned the state by the RNC and how those delegates are allocated.
While all those changes are clear, the one change operating under the surface concerns the delegate selection process. In previous cycles, New York Republicans had candidates file slates of delegates and then based on the results of the primary, fill allocated slots from those slates. That is not the case in 2016 (based on an intra-party dispute over the 2012 delegate selection process). The state party will have a greater say in this than the candidates and their campaigns. Instead of having the campaigns file slates of delegate candidates, the New York Republican Party state committee will select delegates. The full state committee will elect the at-large delegates and just state committee members from a congressional district will elect delegates to fill the three slots from each respective district.
Thresholds
There are several layers to this, but keeping it simple, the New York Republican process has a couple of main thresholds that apply both statewide and at the congressional district level.
On the one hand, there is a qualifying threshold. If a candidate wins more than 20 percent of the vote, then that candidate becomes eligible for either statewide or congressional district delegates. That is a more manageable proposition at the statewide level with 14 (at-large and automatic) delegates than at the congressional district level with just three. As FHQ has said numerous times, there are only so many ways three delegates can be proportionally allocated. [More on this below in the allocation sections.]
On the other, there are winner-take-all thresholds at play in New York as well. If a candidate wins a majority of the vote either statewide or in a congressional district, then all the delegates either statewide (at-large and automatic) or in a district are allocated to the majority winner. That winner-take-all trigger, if tripped, renders the 20% qualifying threshold unnecessary.
Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
Should some candidate win a majority, this process becomes a lot easier. Anyone over 50 percent is allocated all 14 at-large and automatic delegates.
However, the delegates end up being split in most scenarios where no one wins a majority of the vote statewide. Assuming that two more more candidates finish above the 20 percent qualifying threshold, the allocation becomes proportional. A candidate's share of the vote would be divided by the total number of votes of just those candidates over the 20 percent threshold. Any remaining fractional delegates are rounded to the nearest whole number. If that results in an under-allocation, then any under-allocated delegate is given to the top votegetter statewide. In the event that rounding leads to an overallocation, any superfluous delegate(s) is/are removed from the total of the qualifying candidate with the least statewide votes.
Note that there is a split of the delegates in only most scenarios in which a candidate fails to reach 50 percent statewide. There is no provision in the law either permitting or prohibiting a backdoor winner-take-all scenario; one in which only one candidate is above the statewide qualifying threshold. Yet, since only candidates over 20 percent of the statewide vote can qualify for at-large and automatic delegates, then in the situation in which only one candidate clears 20 percent, said candidate would be allocated a pro-rata portion of the available delegates. That share would be 100 percent of the total qualifying vote and thus translate to an allocation of all of the at-large and automatic delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
There are a number of contingencies to account for with respect to the allocation of the congressional district delegates.
In a situation where a candidate wins a majority of the vote, then under the New York rules, all three congressional district delegates are awarded to the winner.
If two or more candidates clear the 20 percent hurdle in a congressional district, then the top finisher would receive two delegates and the runner up one. But in the scenario where only one candidate is above 20 percent in a congressional district, then that one candidate is awarded all three delegates.
Additionally, if no candidate receives more than 20 percent of the vote, then the "delegate positions from such district shall be deemed vacant and filled pursuant to the rules of the national Republican party". This is an interesting provision. The RNC rules defer to the states on these sorts of matters. With the state law/state party rules giving deference to the national party rules, this would seemingly provide the state party with the ability to allocate and fill those slots in a manner that it deems appropriate. And that could be anything: all delegates going to the top votegetter or two going to the top votegetter and one to the runner up (regardless of the threshold), etc.
The party would appear to get to decide on that; to fill in the blanks. Of course, that decision could also be challenged at the national convention by any aggrieved candidate. Given the winnowed field of candidates likely to be around for a mid-April contest, it seems less likely that no candidate will get to 20 percent.
Binding
In the past, when delegates were chosen from slates filed with the state party by the candidates, the New York Republican Party rules kept those delegates bound through the first ballot at the national convention. However, for the 2016 cycle, the slate filing has been removed and replaced by the New York Republican Party state committee selecting those delegates. The full committee will elect the at-large delegates and the members of the subset of state committee members from each district will elect the congressional district delegates. This has the effect of tipping the selection of delegates away from the campaigns and toward the state party. The choices that each may make may not necessarily be in concert with each other. When and if they do not, the campaigns have lost some measure of control over the process and thus who their delegates are.
New York delegates to the Republican National Convention will be bound to candidates based on the results in the April 19 primary. That bond holds until a delegate is released by the candidate or through the first roll call ballot.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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NEW YORK
Election type: primary
Date: April 19
Number of delegates: 95 [11 at-large, 81 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional (but with majority winner-take-all trigger statewide and at the congressional district level)
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 20%
2012: proportional primary
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Changes since 2012
There are three main differences between the delegate allocation/selection plan the New York Republican Party used in 2012 and how the process will operate in 2016. Two of those are more visible changes than the third alteration.
The easiest of the 2016 changes to spot is the positioning of the New York primary on the 2016 presidential primary calendar. As compared to 2012, the primary for 2016 in the Empire state is one week earlier. But the route to that one week change took a winding path. First, the 2011 law setting the primary for April 24 expired at the end of 2012. That caused the election law to reset and the primary date to revert to the first Tuesday in February, a date not compliant with national party rules. By summer 2015, it looked as if the New York primary would once again end up among a group of contiguous mid-Atlantic and northeastern states at the end of April. But that April 26 date fell right in the middle of Passover week and forced the state legislature to consider a date one week earlier, April 19. That bill ultimately passed the legislature and was signed into law by Governor Cuomo.
While the primary date was changed in that legislation, so too, was the method of delegate allocation and selection. As was the case with Arizona, New York is a state where the line is somewhat blurred between which entity -- state government or state party -- determines the method of delegate allocation and selection. In the grand scheme of things, the state party tends have the final say in the matter. If state law called for one thing and the state party wanted another, then the RNC rules (not to mention the courts when these sort of conflicts arise and end up in that arena) give precedence to the state party rule.
But there is no conflict between state law and state party rules in New York. In fact, the changes the New York Republican Party made to its rules for allocation and selection made their way into the aforementioned legislation moving the primary date and became law when the bill was signed.
From an allocation angle, the changes are minimal. New York was "2012 proportional" four years ago despite the fact that its presidential primary fell outside of the proportionality window. All that entailed was a proportional allocation of the statewide/at-large delegates coupled with a winner-take-all component at the congressional district level. That was "proportional" under the 2012 RNC delegate rules.
Yet, in 2016, despite again being outside of the early March proportionality window, New York Republicans have opted for a "2016 proportional" plan. The same rules apply to the at-large delegates awarded based on the statewide results, but now the congressional district delegates are not allocated in a strictly winner-take-all manner. Instead, under certain conditions, the allocation of the three delegates in each congressional district are allocated proportionally and under others, winner-take-all. [More on that below.] For now, it is sufficient to say that the New York congressional district delegates are more likely to be divvied up between candidates in 2016 than was true in 2012.
On the subject of congressional district delegates, one related item that has changed since 2012, is that New York Republicans will be operating under a more standard procedure than was the case four years ago. During the last cycle, New York was apportioned delegates by the RNC as if it had 27 congressional districts. However, due to redistricting-triggered uncertainty over the map of those districts, New York Republicans were forced to use the old, pre-census 29 district map. This resulted in a two delegate per district apportionment under the old map rather than a three delegate per district plan under a new 27 district map. That, in turn, had the effect of shifting more delegates into the at-large pool to be allocated based on the statewide results.
Absent the 2012 redistricting issues, New York is back to the standard alignment between the delegates apportioned the state by the RNC and how those delegates are allocated.
While all those changes are clear, the one change operating under the surface concerns the delegate selection process. In previous cycles, New York Republicans had candidates file slates of delegates and then based on the results of the primary, fill allocated slots from those slates. That is not the case in 2016 (based on an intra-party dispute over the 2012 delegate selection process). The state party will have a greater say in this than the candidates and their campaigns. Instead of having the campaigns file slates of delegate candidates, the New York Republican Party state committee will select delegates. The full state committee will elect the at-large delegates and just state committee members from a congressional district will elect delegates to fill the three slots from each respective district.
Thresholds
There are several layers to this, but keeping it simple, the New York Republican process has a couple of main thresholds that apply both statewide and at the congressional district level.
On the one hand, there is a qualifying threshold. If a candidate wins more than 20 percent of the vote, then that candidate becomes eligible for either statewide or congressional district delegates. That is a more manageable proposition at the statewide level with 14 (at-large and automatic) delegates than at the congressional district level with just three. As FHQ has said numerous times, there are only so many ways three delegates can be proportionally allocated. [More on this below in the allocation sections.]
On the other, there are winner-take-all thresholds at play in New York as well. If a candidate wins a majority of the vote either statewide or in a congressional district, then all the delegates either statewide (at-large and automatic) or in a district are allocated to the majority winner. That winner-take-all trigger, if tripped, renders the 20% qualifying threshold unnecessary.
Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
Should some candidate win a majority, this process becomes a lot easier. Anyone over 50 percent is allocated all 14 at-large and automatic delegates.
However, the delegates end up being split in most scenarios where no one wins a majority of the vote statewide. Assuming that two more more candidates finish above the 20 percent qualifying threshold, the allocation becomes proportional. A candidate's share of the vote would be divided by the total number of votes of just those candidates over the 20 percent threshold. Any remaining fractional delegates are rounded to the nearest whole number. If that results in an under-allocation, then any under-allocated delegate is given to the top votegetter statewide. In the event that rounding leads to an overallocation, any superfluous delegate(s) is/are removed from the total of the qualifying candidate with the least statewide votes.
Note that there is a split of the delegates in only most scenarios in which a candidate fails to reach 50 percent statewide. There is no provision in the law either permitting or prohibiting a backdoor winner-take-all scenario; one in which only one candidate is above the statewide qualifying threshold. Yet, since only candidates over 20 percent of the statewide vote can qualify for at-large and automatic delegates, then in the situation in which only one candidate clears 20 percent, said candidate would be allocated a pro-rata portion of the available delegates. That share would be 100 percent of the total qualifying vote and thus translate to an allocation of all of the at-large and automatic delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
There are a number of contingencies to account for with respect to the allocation of the congressional district delegates.
In a situation where a candidate wins a majority of the vote, then under the New York rules, all three congressional district delegates are awarded to the winner.
If two or more candidates clear the 20 percent hurdle in a congressional district, then the top finisher would receive two delegates and the runner up one. But in the scenario where only one candidate is above 20 percent in a congressional district, then that one candidate is awarded all three delegates.
Additionally, if no candidate receives more than 20 percent of the vote, then the "delegate positions from such district shall be deemed vacant and filled pursuant to the rules of the national Republican party". This is an interesting provision. The RNC rules defer to the states on these sorts of matters. With the state law/state party rules giving deference to the national party rules, this would seemingly provide the state party with the ability to allocate and fill those slots in a manner that it deems appropriate. And that could be anything: all delegates going to the top votegetter or two going to the top votegetter and one to the runner up (regardless of the threshold), etc.
The party would appear to get to decide on that; to fill in the blanks. Of course, that decision could also be challenged at the national convention by any aggrieved candidate. Given the winnowed field of candidates likely to be around for a mid-April contest, it seems less likely that no candidate will get to 20 percent.
Binding
In the past, when delegates were chosen from slates filed with the state party by the candidates, the New York Republican Party rules kept those delegates bound through the first ballot at the national convention. However, for the 2016 cycle, the slate filing has been removed and replaced by the New York Republican Party state committee selecting those delegates. The full committee will elect the at-large delegates and the members of the subset of state committee members from each district will elect the congressional district delegates. This has the effect of tipping the selection of delegates away from the campaigns and toward the state party. The choices that each may make may not necessarily be in concert with each other. When and if they do not, the campaigns have lost some measure of control over the process and thus who their delegates are.
New York delegates to the Republican National Convention will be bound to candidates based on the results in the April 19 primary. That bond holds until a delegate is released by the candidate or through the first roll call ballot.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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Sunday, March 20, 2016
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: UTAH
This is part thirty-six of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
UTAH
Election type: caucus
Date: March 22
Number of delegates: 40 [25 at-large, 12 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional (but with statewide winner-take-all trigger)
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2012: winner-take-all primary
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Changes since 2012
The presidential nomination process has been all over the map in Utah for the last five years. State law called for a February presidential primary back in 2011 but only if the state funded that election. The legislature did not fund that (would-have-been non-compliant) election for 2012, but did have to alter the law to add a presidential line to the June primary ballot for state and local offices. Even then, there were discussions about moving the primary to March (which never came to fruition).
Yes, all of this happened before 2012, but that same type of pattern carried over to the 2016 cycle as well. The same February option was there for state legislators in the Beehive state, but funding of that election was never considered after 2012. However, a 2014 bill to move the Utah primary into a first in the nation slot on the calendar ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire passed the state House before getting lost in the shuffle of last-day negotiations on the state Senate side.
Once that fizzled, actors within both state parties as well as the legislature were left with a late June presidential primary that failed to comply with either national parties' delegate selection rules. It was too late on the calendar; too close to the conventions.
After a failed attempt in 2015 to move the non-compliant June primary to March, both Utah state parties were forced to shift to caucuses, and both opted for March 22 dates that aligned with the primary in neighboring Arizona.
But for Utah Republicans the switch to caucuses (and an earlier contest) was not the only change for 2016. Despite settling on a date that was outside of the proportionality window, the Utah Republican Party chose to adopt a more proportional allocation plan in lieu of the party's traditional winner-take-all formula.
Thresholds
The Utah Republican Party version of proportional requires that a candidate win 15 percent of the statewide vote in order to qualify for a share of the 40 delegates. All 40 delegates, regardless of at-large, congressional district or automatic status, are pooled and allocated based on the statewide vote in the caucuses.
Additionally, there is a provision in the Utah Republican Party rules prohibiting a backdoor winner-take-all allocation scenario. If fewer than three candidates surpass the 15 percent threshold then the threshold is dropped and the allocation becomes truly proportional.
With caucuses planned as late as the Utah Republican caucuses are -- after the point on the calendar where 50 percent of the delegates will have been allocated -- the field of candidates is likely to have winnowed. That opens the door to a couple of possibilities. First, as the field of candidates shrinks, the chances that the winner-take-all trigger will be tripped rises. Any candidate who wins a majority of the statewide vote qualifies to be allocated all 40 Utah delegates.
But the odds of winner-take-all trigger being activated only increase to a certain point. Given the backdoor winner-take-all prevention provision described above, the field shrinking also means that the odds that the 15 percent threshold will be removed are still high under certain circumstances. For example, in a three person race -- one in which one candidate is approaching (but still under) the 50 percent winner-take-all trigger, another is hovering around the 15 percent qualifying threshold and another is clearly above the 15 percent barrier -- the 15 percent threshold disappears and the allocation becomes truly proportional. [More on this in the next section.]
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Utah Republicans will use an allocation equation that divides the qualifying candidate's share of the statewide vote by the total number of qualifying votes (only the votes of those candidates above the 15 percent threshold). That equation is coupled with a rounding method that favors candidates at the top end of the order. Fractional delegates are all rounded up and in a sequence from the top votegetter to the last qualifying candidate. Operationally, the top votegetters statewide will have their delegates rounded up and the final qualifier will be left with whatever scraps there are.
In a large field with numerous qualifying candidates that rounding method may keep a final qualifier out of the delegates altogether. However, a smaller field may net the last qualifier some delegates, but a larger delegate deficit relative to the winner depending on the winner's share of the vote. That is more likely to be the case in a multi-qualifier field of three than in a two qualifier scenario.
Yet, if only two candidates qualify and no one receives a majority, the allocation method changes. Under the provisions described above, if only two candidates clear the 15 percent threshold, then the allocation shifts to a truly proportional method with no threshold. That alters the allocation equation; switching out the total qualifying vote as the denominator for the total overall vote (for all candidates appearing on the ballot). That would not only bring the third candidate in the scenario above (see Thresholds section) back into the delegates but others as well.
To proportionally allocate all of the delegates as called for in the Utah Republican rules, all of the candidates on the ballot become much more likely to receive delegates. Again, the rounding is always up, so fractional delegates become whole delegates. And the process is sequential. The allocation will go on down the line until all of the delegates are allocated.
For example, in the current race in Utah, Cruz appears to be approaching the majority mark in some polls. But if the Texas senator does not get there and Katich's presence in Utah hurts both Cruz and Trump, then Donald Trump may fail to get to 15 percent. In that instance the allocation becomes truly proportional. Furthermore, it means that suspended candidates like Bush and Rubio or Paul and Huckabee could also round up to a full delegate with only very few votes. That is the only the way the allocation can work in full under the rules.
But that brings this to how the binding works.
Binding
The above method of rounding greatly simplifies matters by eliminating the prospect of over- and under-allocated delegates. Utah Republicans have also similarly simplified the binding of delegates compared to other states. All 40 delegates are or will be bound throughout the Republican nomination process. The only question is who those delegates are bound to. That can change.
How?
Utah, like Alaska, reallocates the delegates of candidates who have dropped out of the race to any still-active candidates. Unlike the process in Alaska, Utah Republicans do this throughout the process until there is a Republican nominee. If, for example there are three candidates -- Candidate A, Candidate B and Candidate C -- all of whom qualify for and win delegates in the Utah caucuses, then those delegates are bound to those candidates as long as the candidates are still in the race.
If Candidate C drops out at any point, his or her delegates are proportionally reallocated to Candidate A and Candidate B based on the statewide results in the March 22 caucuses. Those delegates would be bound to those two candidates, again, until there is a nominee.
If Candidate B were to drop out thereafter, then Candidate B's delegates would be reallocated to the remaining still-active candidates. In this hypothetical situation, only Candidate A is left. Candidate B's delegates -- which include at least some of Candidate C's delegates -- would be reallocated to Candidate A, who would have all 40 of the Utah delegates bound to him or her at that point.1
Unlike other states, Utah does not have a procedure for release. Delegates are reallocated instead. This prevents the bound-but-not-sympathetic delegate conflict entirely, but also tamps down on the potential for chaos in a contested convention environment by binding the delegates throughout. That the delegates are all bound throughout the process minimizes to some degree the importance of the delegate selection process in Utah.
Still, in the scenario where suspended candidates have been allocated delegates (described above in the Allocation section), those delegates are not reallocated until the national convention. Not being involved in the race "at the national convention" is the line drawn in the language of the Utah Republican rules to trigger a reallocation. That means that that only happens once -- at the convention -- rather than multiple times throughout primary season as candidates drop out.2
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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1 The one quirky loophole in the reallocation process is that there is nothing -- no language in the rules -- covering the possibility that a non-qualifying candidate becomes the presumptive nominee. In other words, how are the Utah delegates reallocated in the event that a candidate who did not qualify for Utah delegates -- a prerequisite for being reallocated delegates under the rules as the reallocation is done "in accordance to the rules of this section [Section 7.0 B on delegate allocation]" -- emerges as the last candidate standing at the national convention. This would apply to two types of candidates: 1) Candidate D, who ran but failed to qualify for delegates in the Utah primary or 2) Candidate E, who after multiple ballots at the convention is inserted as a consensus candidate but who did not compete for votes in Utah or any other states during the primary phase.
Simplifying, assume that Candidate D is someone like Donald Trump. The New York real estate tycoon is not expected to do well in the Utah caucuses. He could even fall short of the qualifying threshold to receive any delegates. Yet, he has enough delegates from other states so far to be a factor if not the ultimate nominee at the national convention. It isn't clear in the Utah rules as written that the delegates could be reallocated to him.
The same is true if Candidate E is someone like Mitt Romney, who could hypothetically be put forth after a number of inconclusive roll call votes at the convention as a, again, hypothetical consensus candidate. Like Trump above, Romney did not qualify for delegates in the caucuses and theoretically could not be reallocated those delegates.
There is no clear release procedure, and there is an additional lack of clarity over whether the Utah delegates would become unbound in that case or bound to a presumptive nominee.
2 Yes, that runs counter to how the example was described above, but that type of description was necessary in order to lay the groundwork for the description of the full impact of the reallocation rules in the first footnote above.
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UTAH
Election type: caucus
Date: March 22
Number of delegates: 40 [25 at-large, 12 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional (but with statewide winner-take-all trigger)
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2012: winner-take-all primary
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Changes since 2012
The presidential nomination process has been all over the map in Utah for the last five years. State law called for a February presidential primary back in 2011 but only if the state funded that election. The legislature did not fund that (would-have-been non-compliant) election for 2012, but did have to alter the law to add a presidential line to the June primary ballot for state and local offices. Even then, there were discussions about moving the primary to March (which never came to fruition).
Yes, all of this happened before 2012, but that same type of pattern carried over to the 2016 cycle as well. The same February option was there for state legislators in the Beehive state, but funding of that election was never considered after 2012. However, a 2014 bill to move the Utah primary into a first in the nation slot on the calendar ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire passed the state House before getting lost in the shuffle of last-day negotiations on the state Senate side.
Once that fizzled, actors within both state parties as well as the legislature were left with a late June presidential primary that failed to comply with either national parties' delegate selection rules. It was too late on the calendar; too close to the conventions.
After a failed attempt in 2015 to move the non-compliant June primary to March, both Utah state parties were forced to shift to caucuses, and both opted for March 22 dates that aligned with the primary in neighboring Arizona.
But for Utah Republicans the switch to caucuses (and an earlier contest) was not the only change for 2016. Despite settling on a date that was outside of the proportionality window, the Utah Republican Party chose to adopt a more proportional allocation plan in lieu of the party's traditional winner-take-all formula.
Thresholds
The Utah Republican Party version of proportional requires that a candidate win 15 percent of the statewide vote in order to qualify for a share of the 40 delegates. All 40 delegates, regardless of at-large, congressional district or automatic status, are pooled and allocated based on the statewide vote in the caucuses.
Additionally, there is a provision in the Utah Republican Party rules prohibiting a backdoor winner-take-all allocation scenario. If fewer than three candidates surpass the 15 percent threshold then the threshold is dropped and the allocation becomes truly proportional.
With caucuses planned as late as the Utah Republican caucuses are -- after the point on the calendar where 50 percent of the delegates will have been allocated -- the field of candidates is likely to have winnowed. That opens the door to a couple of possibilities. First, as the field of candidates shrinks, the chances that the winner-take-all trigger will be tripped rises. Any candidate who wins a majority of the statewide vote qualifies to be allocated all 40 Utah delegates.
But the odds of winner-take-all trigger being activated only increase to a certain point. Given the backdoor winner-take-all prevention provision described above, the field shrinking also means that the odds that the 15 percent threshold will be removed are still high under certain circumstances. For example, in a three person race -- one in which one candidate is approaching (but still under) the 50 percent winner-take-all trigger, another is hovering around the 15 percent qualifying threshold and another is clearly above the 15 percent barrier -- the 15 percent threshold disappears and the allocation becomes truly proportional. [More on this in the next section.]
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Utah Republicans will use an allocation equation that divides the qualifying candidate's share of the statewide vote by the total number of qualifying votes (only the votes of those candidates above the 15 percent threshold). That equation is coupled with a rounding method that favors candidates at the top end of the order. Fractional delegates are all rounded up and in a sequence from the top votegetter to the last qualifying candidate. Operationally, the top votegetters statewide will have their delegates rounded up and the final qualifier will be left with whatever scraps there are.
In a large field with numerous qualifying candidates that rounding method may keep a final qualifier out of the delegates altogether. However, a smaller field may net the last qualifier some delegates, but a larger delegate deficit relative to the winner depending on the winner's share of the vote. That is more likely to be the case in a multi-qualifier field of three than in a two qualifier scenario.
Yet, if only two candidates qualify and no one receives a majority, the allocation method changes. Under the provisions described above, if only two candidates clear the 15 percent threshold, then the allocation shifts to a truly proportional method with no threshold. That alters the allocation equation; switching out the total qualifying vote as the denominator for the total overall vote (for all candidates appearing on the ballot). That would not only bring the third candidate in the scenario above (see Thresholds section) back into the delegates but others as well.
To proportionally allocate all of the delegates as called for in the Utah Republican rules, all of the candidates on the ballot become much more likely to receive delegates. Again, the rounding is always up, so fractional delegates become whole delegates. And the process is sequential. The allocation will go on down the line until all of the delegates are allocated.
For example, in the current race in Utah, Cruz appears to be approaching the majority mark in some polls. But if the Texas senator does not get there and Katich's presence in Utah hurts both Cruz and Trump, then Donald Trump may fail to get to 15 percent. In that instance the allocation becomes truly proportional. Furthermore, it means that suspended candidates like Bush and Rubio or Paul and Huckabee could also round up to a full delegate with only very few votes. That is the only the way the allocation can work in full under the rules.
But that brings this to how the binding works.
Binding
The above method of rounding greatly simplifies matters by eliminating the prospect of over- and under-allocated delegates. Utah Republicans have also similarly simplified the binding of delegates compared to other states. All 40 delegates are or will be bound throughout the Republican nomination process. The only question is who those delegates are bound to. That can change.
How?
Utah, like Alaska, reallocates the delegates of candidates who have dropped out of the race to any still-active candidates. Unlike the process in Alaska, Utah Republicans do this throughout the process until there is a Republican nominee. If, for example there are three candidates -- Candidate A, Candidate B and Candidate C -- all of whom qualify for and win delegates in the Utah caucuses, then those delegates are bound to those candidates as long as the candidates are still in the race.
If Candidate C drops out at any point, his or her delegates are proportionally reallocated to Candidate A and Candidate B based on the statewide results in the March 22 caucuses. Those delegates would be bound to those two candidates, again, until there is a nominee.
If Candidate B were to drop out thereafter, then Candidate B's delegates would be reallocated to the remaining still-active candidates. In this hypothetical situation, only Candidate A is left. Candidate B's delegates -- which include at least some of Candidate C's delegates -- would be reallocated to Candidate A, who would have all 40 of the Utah delegates bound to him or her at that point.1
Unlike other states, Utah does not have a procedure for release. Delegates are reallocated instead. This prevents the bound-but-not-sympathetic delegate conflict entirely, but also tamps down on the potential for chaos in a contested convention environment by binding the delegates throughout. That the delegates are all bound throughout the process minimizes to some degree the importance of the delegate selection process in Utah.
Still, in the scenario where suspended candidates have been allocated delegates (described above in the Allocation section), those delegates are not reallocated until the national convention. Not being involved in the race "at the national convention" is the line drawn in the language of the Utah Republican rules to trigger a reallocation. That means that that only happens once -- at the convention -- rather than multiple times throughout primary season as candidates drop out.2
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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1 The one quirky loophole in the reallocation process is that there is nothing -- no language in the rules -- covering the possibility that a non-qualifying candidate becomes the presumptive nominee. In other words, how are the Utah delegates reallocated in the event that a candidate who did not qualify for Utah delegates -- a prerequisite for being reallocated delegates under the rules as the reallocation is done "in accordance to the rules of this section [Section 7.0 B on delegate allocation]" -- emerges as the last candidate standing at the national convention. This would apply to two types of candidates: 1) Candidate D, who ran but failed to qualify for delegates in the Utah primary or 2) Candidate E, who after multiple ballots at the convention is inserted as a consensus candidate but who did not compete for votes in Utah or any other states during the primary phase.
Simplifying, assume that Candidate D is someone like Donald Trump. The New York real estate tycoon is not expected to do well in the Utah caucuses. He could even fall short of the qualifying threshold to receive any delegates. Yet, he has enough delegates from other states so far to be a factor if not the ultimate nominee at the national convention. It isn't clear in the Utah rules as written that the delegates could be reallocated to him.
The same is true if Candidate E is someone like Mitt Romney, who could hypothetically be put forth after a number of inconclusive roll call votes at the convention as a, again, hypothetical consensus candidate. Like Trump above, Romney did not qualify for delegates in the caucuses and theoretically could not be reallocated those delegates.
There is no clear release procedure, and there is an additional lack of clarity over whether the Utah delegates would become unbound in that case or bound to a presumptive nominee.
2 Yes, that runs counter to how the example was described above, but that type of description was necessary in order to lay the groundwork for the description of the full impact of the reallocation rules in the first footnote above.
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Friday, March 18, 2016
The Reallocation of Rubio's Five Alaska Delegates
On Tuesday evening Marco Rubio suspended his campaign in the wake of a loss in the primary in his home state of Florida. That set off a firestorm of reactions concerning what would happen to the approximately 170 delegates allocated to Senator Rubio through the contests that have occurred to this point on the presidential primary calendar. The short answer is that the process for the release of delegates varies by state and is complex.
The longer answer, as FHQ has explained elsewhere, is that the variation across states tends to fall into three main categories:
Kentucky has this option. The Republican delegation from the Bluegrass state will vote at the convention on reallocating the seven delegates bound to Rubio. Nevada also has this option, but it is a candidate option. Rubio could choose to have his seven delegates in the Silver state reallocated or opt to release those delegates. In both cases, it is not entirely clear where those 14 delegates will end up in terms of their preferences, much less the candidate to whom they are (newly) bound (if newly bound).
There is more immediate clarity on what happens in Alaska with regard to the reallocation of the five delegates Rubio was allocated based on the March 1 caucuses in the Last Frontier.
Well, at least there seemed to be.
The Alaska Republican Party rules, first of all, have a low bar for the release of delegates. To be deemed released, a candidate merely has to have stopped actively campaigning. Rubio meets that qualification. The next step is the reallocation.
According to those same Alaska Republican Party rules, there are different contingencies for the reallocation based on when the release of the delegates occurs.
But take a moment to go back and carefully read the conditions of contingency #1 and contingency #2. Yes, there is the before and after the state convention difference, but there is also an operational difference with respect to the specificity of the reallocation. Note that the provisions in contingency #1 are ambiguous. There is no explicit guidance as to how the reallocation is to be done. However, in contingency #2, there is. The drop out-aligned delegates are reallocated proportionally to the remaining qualifying candidates.
Under that type of reallocation -- the one described in contingency #2 -- Rubio's five delegates would have been split 3-2. Cruz beat out Trump in the Alaska caucuses and would claim three delegates to Trump's two. That would give Cruz more than half of the Alaska delegation with 15 total delegates and give the Texas senator one more state toward the eight necessary to be placed in nomination under the current Rule 40.
But the reallocation process in contingency #1 is not as clearly specified as it is in contingency #2. Instead of the reallocation leading to a new 15-13 split that favors Cruz, the Alaska Republican Party has reallocated three of the Rubio delegates to Trump and two to Cruz. The state party interprets the rules in a way that leads to an even 14-14 delegate distribution of the Alaska delegates.
Now sure, this is one delegate. This Alaska situation also echoes in some ways the Romney-Santorum argument over one delegate in Michigan four years ago. But 2016 is not 2012. With increasing talk of a contested convention, even one delegate matters.
Keep this one in mind should primary season end in an inconclusive result. It will come back up again then.
The longer answer, as FHQ has explained elsewhere, is that the variation across states tends to fall into three main categories:
- The delegates are unbound if released (assuming a more formal withdrawal).
- The delegates are locked in regardless. The bond is indefinite.
- The delegates are reallocated to the still-active candidates (assuming they met any qualifying threshold if one exists).
Kentucky has this option. The Republican delegation from the Bluegrass state will vote at the convention on reallocating the seven delegates bound to Rubio. Nevada also has this option, but it is a candidate option. Rubio could choose to have his seven delegates in the Silver state reallocated or opt to release those delegates. In both cases, it is not entirely clear where those 14 delegates will end up in terms of their preferences, much less the candidate to whom they are (newly) bound (if newly bound).
There is more immediate clarity on what happens in Alaska with regard to the reallocation of the five delegates Rubio was allocated based on the March 1 caucuses in the Last Frontier.
Well, at least there seemed to be.
The Alaska Republican Party rules, first of all, have a low bar for the release of delegates. To be deemed released, a candidate merely has to have stopped actively campaigning. Rubio meets that qualification. The next step is the reallocation.
According to those same Alaska Republican Party rules, there are different contingencies for the reallocation based on when the release of the delegates occurs.
- If a candidate drops out before the state convention (when the delegates are selected to fill those slots allocated in the March 1 caucuses) then any delegates that candidate was allocated are reallocated to any qualifying candidate (those who met the 13% threshold) still in the race.
- If a candidate drops out after the state convention and thus, after the delegates have been chosen, any delegates won by the withdrawing candidate are reallocated to the remaining qualified candidates using the proportional formula in the original post-caucus allocation.
- If a candidate drops out at the national convention, the delegates are bound to the candidate through the first two ballots. After a hypothetical inconclusive couple of ballots, the delegates become unbound.
But take a moment to go back and carefully read the conditions of contingency #1 and contingency #2. Yes, there is the before and after the state convention difference, but there is also an operational difference with respect to the specificity of the reallocation. Note that the provisions in contingency #1 are ambiguous. There is no explicit guidance as to how the reallocation is to be done. However, in contingency #2, there is. The drop out-aligned delegates are reallocated proportionally to the remaining qualifying candidates.
Under that type of reallocation -- the one described in contingency #2 -- Rubio's five delegates would have been split 3-2. Cruz beat out Trump in the Alaska caucuses and would claim three delegates to Trump's two. That would give Cruz more than half of the Alaska delegation with 15 total delegates and give the Texas senator one more state toward the eight necessary to be placed in nomination under the current Rule 40.
But the reallocation process in contingency #1 is not as clearly specified as it is in contingency #2. Instead of the reallocation leading to a new 15-13 split that favors Cruz, the Alaska Republican Party has reallocated three of the Rubio delegates to Trump and two to Cruz. The state party interprets the rules in a way that leads to an even 14-14 delegate distribution of the Alaska delegates.
Now sure, this is one delegate. This Alaska situation also echoes in some ways the Romney-Santorum argument over one delegate in Michigan four years ago. But 2016 is not 2012. With increasing talk of a contested convention, even one delegate matters.
Keep this one in mind should primary season end in an inconclusive result. It will come back up again then.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NORTH CAROLINA
This is part thirty-three of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
NORTH CAROLINA
Election type: primary
Date: March 15
Number of delegates: 72 [30 at-large, 39 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: no official threshold
2012: proportional primary
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Changes since 2012
The period between 2012 and 2016 was a bit of a roller coaster ride with respect to the process for allocating national convention delegates in North Carolina. In the late summer of 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation (that was ultimately signed into law) tethering the presidential primary in the Tar Heel state to the South Carolina primary. As the latter is a carve-out state, that moved North Carolina out of compliance with the national party rules regarding the timing of delegate selection events.
That also set off an eventual 2015 discussion about untethering from South Carolina and changing the non-compliant primary date to avoid sanction. Revisiting the primary date issue gave rise to an additional wrinkle: changing state law to shift from a proportional allocation to a winner-take-all allocation. Legislation coupling the winner-take-all provision with a March 15 primary -- the first day following the close of the proportionality window when states have the option of awarding delegates in a winner-take-all fashion -- made its way through the general assembly and was signed into law.
But then the North Carolina Republican Party overrode the legislative decision on the method of allocation, opting in a September 2015 Executive Committee meeting to continue with the traditional proportional method of allocation.
The long and winding road ended up pushing the North Carolina primary -- the presidential one along with the primaries for state and local offices -- up seven weeks on the primary calendar from May but maintained a proportional allocation of delegates. The state party also decided to continue allocating delegates with no qualifying threshold. North Carolina is the last of the truly proportional states -- no threshold -- on the Republican presidential calendar. It is also the final southern state primary.
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
With no threshold, there is little to the North Carolina method of delegate allocation. Every candidate still in the race will qualify for some delegates. The real question is how the rounding rules work. The North Carolina Republican Party plan of organization does not include the specifics, but in consultation with the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, the rounding operates under a closest to the threshold rule. Any fractional delegate above 0.5 is rounded up and anything below is rounded down.
In the event that the rounding leads to an overalloation of delegates, then the superfluous delegate is removed from the total of the candidate with the remainder (fractional delegate) closest to the rounding threshold. Should the total rounding lead to fewer than the full North Carolina apportionment of delegates being allocated, then the under-allocated is added to the total of the candidate closest to the rounding threshold. These rounding rules are consistent with those used in neighboring Virginia.
Binding
There is a lack of clarity at this time as to what the release procedure is for delegates bound to candidates who have withdrawn from the race, and furthermore how long delegates would be bound to a candidate at the national convention (the number of ballots). As of now, the tentative judgment of the North Carolina Republican Party is that the delegates would be bound all the way through the balloting with no release procedure (similar to Iowa). However, that is not set in stone.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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NORTH CAROLINA
Election type: primary
Date: March 15
Number of delegates: 72 [30 at-large, 39 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: no official threshold
2012: proportional primary
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Changes since 2012
The period between 2012 and 2016 was a bit of a roller coaster ride with respect to the process for allocating national convention delegates in North Carolina. In the late summer of 2013, the North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation (that was ultimately signed into law) tethering the presidential primary in the Tar Heel state to the South Carolina primary. As the latter is a carve-out state, that moved North Carolina out of compliance with the national party rules regarding the timing of delegate selection events.
That also set off an eventual 2015 discussion about untethering from South Carolina and changing the non-compliant primary date to avoid sanction. Revisiting the primary date issue gave rise to an additional wrinkle: changing state law to shift from a proportional allocation to a winner-take-all allocation. Legislation coupling the winner-take-all provision with a March 15 primary -- the first day following the close of the proportionality window when states have the option of awarding delegates in a winner-take-all fashion -- made its way through the general assembly and was signed into law.
But then the North Carolina Republican Party overrode the legislative decision on the method of allocation, opting in a September 2015 Executive Committee meeting to continue with the traditional proportional method of allocation.
The long and winding road ended up pushing the North Carolina primary -- the presidential one along with the primaries for state and local offices -- up seven weeks on the primary calendar from May but maintained a proportional allocation of delegates. The state party also decided to continue allocating delegates with no qualifying threshold. North Carolina is the last of the truly proportional states -- no threshold -- on the Republican presidential calendar. It is also the final southern state primary.
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
With no threshold, there is little to the North Carolina method of delegate allocation. Every candidate still in the race will qualify for some delegates. The real question is how the rounding rules work. The North Carolina Republican Party plan of organization does not include the specifics, but in consultation with the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, the rounding operates under a closest to the threshold rule. Any fractional delegate above 0.5 is rounded up and anything below is rounded down.
In the event that the rounding leads to an overalloation of delegates, then the superfluous delegate is removed from the total of the candidate with the remainder (fractional delegate) closest to the rounding threshold. Should the total rounding lead to fewer than the full North Carolina apportionment of delegates being allocated, then the under-allocated is added to the total of the candidate closest to the rounding threshold. These rounding rules are consistent with those used in neighboring Virginia.
Binding
There is a lack of clarity at this time as to what the release procedure is for delegates bound to candidates who have withdrawn from the race, and furthermore how long delegates would be bound to a candidate at the national convention (the number of ballots). As of now, the tentative judgment of the North Carolina Republican Party is that the delegates would be bound all the way through the balloting with no release procedure (similar to Iowa). However, that is not set in stone.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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Tuesday, March 8, 2016
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: MISSISSIPPI
This is part twenty-six of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
MISSISSIPPI
Election type: primary
Date: March 8
Number of delegates: 40 [25 at-large, 12 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15% (statewide)1
2012: proportional primary
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Changes since 2012
While there was an attempt to shift the Mississippi presidential primary up a week to join other southern states as part of the SEC primary, it remained just that: an attempt. Neighboring Alabama moved and left Mississippi as the lone southern state on the calendar between the two dates -- March 1 and March 15 -- with the most delegates at stake this cycle.
The Mississippi Republican Party, then, has the same primary date as 2012 -- second Tuesday in March -- but has also mostly carried over its rules from the 2012 cycle. The allocation is proportional and still split across congressional districts and statewide. There are some subtle changes, but those will be dealt with below.
Thresholds
The first of those subtle alterations has to do with the thresholds to qualify for delegates. Statewide, a candidate must reach 15 percent of the vote to receive any of the at-large and automatic delegates. A new wrinkle for 2016 is that the party has inserted a lower threshold of 10% as a fall-back option should no candidate surpass 15 percent of the vote. This is not an uncommon response on the state party level given how large the field of Republican candidates was when rules were being finalized in the late summer/early fall of 2015. But as a field winnows, the necessity of that fall-back, lower threshold decreases.
There is no winner-take-all trigger in Mississippi for a candidate who wins a majority of the statewide vote in the primary. However, there also is no prohibition on a backdoor winner-take-all scenario. If only one candidate receives more than 15% of the vote, then that candidate would claim all 28 at-large and automatic delegates. The usual winnowing caveats apply. As the field shrinks, so too do the odds that only one candidate will receive more than 15% of the vote.
At the congressional district level, there just one threshold; a winner-take-all trigger. Should a candidate receive more than 50% of the vote in any of Mississippi's four congressional district, then that candidate is entitled to all three of the delegates from that district.
Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
There is not a lot of intrigue here. Again, candidates above 15% of the vote will receive a proportional share of the 28 at-large and automatic delegates based on the statewide vote in the primary. The allocation equation divides the candidates' shares of the statewide vote by the qualifying vote (the votes of just those over the threshold). If all candidates reach 15 percent, then the allocation is roughly proportional to the candidate's statewide share of the vote. Yet, as the share of the vote outside of the qualifying vote grows, the shares of the delegates for the qualifier increase as well.
For example, if one candidate misses the cut with 14 percent of the vote, that 14 percent of the delegates is distributed to the candidates who qualified. That would give them a share of the statewide delegates that is greater than their raw share of the statewide vote.
The rounding rules are fairly simplistic. Any fractional at-large and automatic delegates are rounded to the nearest whole number. If that results in an overallocation of delegates, then the superfluous delegates are subtracted from the last qualifier -- the one with the fewest votes -- to square the delegate distribution/count. In the event that the rounding results in an under-allocation, then those delegates would become unbound. This is counter to how a number of other states have handled similar, under-allocation situations. The norm is that when fewer delegates are allocated than a state has that the under-allocated delegate is added to the total of the top votegetter (see Michigan for example). That is not the case in Mississippi. That delegate (or delegates) would be unbound.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Some states have had a number of ways of allocating their congressional district delegates. As FHQ has been fond of saying, though, there are only so many ways to allocate three delegates. The Mississippi Republican Party has kept the process pretty basic. If no one wins a majority of the vote in a congressional district, then the winner is allocated two delegates and the runner-up one. There is no threshold to qualify. There is, however, a winner-take-all threshold. Should a candidate win a majority, then that candidate would be allocated all three delegates from that district.
All that matters is whether someone wins a majority and, barring that, how the candidates place. Being in the top two is of the utmost importance. Third place (or lower) on the congressional district level is no place to be because such candidate would be left out of the delegates.
Binding
The Mississippi Republican Party requires delegate candidates to file with the party and affiliate with a candidate in the process. In addition, the candidates (or their representatives) have some input at the state convention over who ends up filling their allocated delegate slots. The campaigns have more influence in getting "their guys" through to the national convention as compared to other states. Due to that connection -- based on the filing requirements and the candidates' say -- the Mississippi delegates are bound until released. If no one drops out, then the delegates remain bound. There is no limit to how long this bond lasts in terms of a number of ballots. It depends entirely on whether the candidate or their campaign releases the delegates from the binding.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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1 If no candidate reaches the 15 percent threshold, then it is lowered to 10 percent.
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MISSISSIPPI
Election type: primary
Date: March 8
Number of delegates: 40 [25 at-large, 12 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15% (statewide)1
2012: proportional primary
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Changes since 2012
While there was an attempt to shift the Mississippi presidential primary up a week to join other southern states as part of the SEC primary, it remained just that: an attempt. Neighboring Alabama moved and left Mississippi as the lone southern state on the calendar between the two dates -- March 1 and March 15 -- with the most delegates at stake this cycle.
The Mississippi Republican Party, then, has the same primary date as 2012 -- second Tuesday in March -- but has also mostly carried over its rules from the 2012 cycle. The allocation is proportional and still split across congressional districts and statewide. There are some subtle changes, but those will be dealt with below.
Thresholds
The first of those subtle alterations has to do with the thresholds to qualify for delegates. Statewide, a candidate must reach 15 percent of the vote to receive any of the at-large and automatic delegates. A new wrinkle for 2016 is that the party has inserted a lower threshold of 10% as a fall-back option should no candidate surpass 15 percent of the vote. This is not an uncommon response on the state party level given how large the field of Republican candidates was when rules were being finalized in the late summer/early fall of 2015. But as a field winnows, the necessity of that fall-back, lower threshold decreases.
There is no winner-take-all trigger in Mississippi for a candidate who wins a majority of the statewide vote in the primary. However, there also is no prohibition on a backdoor winner-take-all scenario. If only one candidate receives more than 15% of the vote, then that candidate would claim all 28 at-large and automatic delegates. The usual winnowing caveats apply. As the field shrinks, so too do the odds that only one candidate will receive more than 15% of the vote.
At the congressional district level, there just one threshold; a winner-take-all trigger. Should a candidate receive more than 50% of the vote in any of Mississippi's four congressional district, then that candidate is entitled to all three of the delegates from that district.
Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
There is not a lot of intrigue here. Again, candidates above 15% of the vote will receive a proportional share of the 28 at-large and automatic delegates based on the statewide vote in the primary. The allocation equation divides the candidates' shares of the statewide vote by the qualifying vote (the votes of just those over the threshold). If all candidates reach 15 percent, then the allocation is roughly proportional to the candidate's statewide share of the vote. Yet, as the share of the vote outside of the qualifying vote grows, the shares of the delegates for the qualifier increase as well.
For example, if one candidate misses the cut with 14 percent of the vote, that 14 percent of the delegates is distributed to the candidates who qualified. That would give them a share of the statewide delegates that is greater than their raw share of the statewide vote.
The rounding rules are fairly simplistic. Any fractional at-large and automatic delegates are rounded to the nearest whole number. If that results in an overallocation of delegates, then the superfluous delegates are subtracted from the last qualifier -- the one with the fewest votes -- to square the delegate distribution/count. In the event that the rounding results in an under-allocation, then those delegates would become unbound. This is counter to how a number of other states have handled similar, under-allocation situations. The norm is that when fewer delegates are allocated than a state has that the under-allocated delegate is added to the total of the top votegetter (see Michigan for example). That is not the case in Mississippi. That delegate (or delegates) would be unbound.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Some states have had a number of ways of allocating their congressional district delegates. As FHQ has been fond of saying, though, there are only so many ways to allocate three delegates. The Mississippi Republican Party has kept the process pretty basic. If no one wins a majority of the vote in a congressional district, then the winner is allocated two delegates and the runner-up one. There is no threshold to qualify. There is, however, a winner-take-all threshold. Should a candidate win a majority, then that candidate would be allocated all three delegates from that district.
All that matters is whether someone wins a majority and, barring that, how the candidates place. Being in the top two is of the utmost importance. Third place (or lower) on the congressional district level is no place to be because such candidate would be left out of the delegates.
Binding
The Mississippi Republican Party requires delegate candidates to file with the party and affiliate with a candidate in the process. In addition, the candidates (or their representatives) have some input at the state convention over who ends up filling their allocated delegate slots. The campaigns have more influence in getting "their guys" through to the national convention as compared to other states. Due to that connection -- based on the filing requirements and the candidates' say -- the Mississippi delegates are bound until released. If no one drops out, then the delegates remain bound. There is no limit to how long this bond lasts in terms of a number of ballots. It depends entirely on whether the candidate or their campaign releases the delegates from the binding.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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1 If no candidate reaches the 15 percent threshold, then it is lowered to 10 percent.
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Monday, March 7, 2016
A Delegate Count Reconciliation Quickie
FHQ saw Eric Ostermeier's post on the varying delegate counts this morning, and since I have looked at these numbers until I ended up cross-eyed each night for the last week, I will make a few comments about what is driving the differences across the major trackers.
First, it should be said that the combination of simpler rules and clearer results drove the agreement across all outlets. In most of those states -- six out of nine -- the delegates were pooled rather than split across congressional districts. Where they were not -- South Carolina, Alabama and Minnesota -- the results were clear. That clarity means that the rounding rules were never all that consequential or at the very least were easier to decipher in allocating delegates.
That suggests that in the states where there is disagreement among the various delegate trackers partially boils down to the results on the congressional district level. But there are some tricky rounding and other rules that are likely the culprits for the differences.
Let's look at the problem states one by one.
New Hampshire
Look, this one is a done deal for now. It may come back up at the convention, but the New Hampshire Republican Party has already certified the results and the delegate count. There is some question about whether the NHGOP or the secretary of state got the rounding wrong, but again this is a settled issue until the convention. CBS needs to catch up with everyone else. It will eventually go the other way if Rubio is still in the race because the rounding rules were not followed properly.
Nevada
Again, CBS is wrong on this one. It looks as if they are treating Nevada as a state with a qualifying threshold that it does not have. Nobody under 20% was allocated any delegates by CBS. That includes Ben Carson, who won two delegates also.
Arkansas
The Natural state is the first to demonstrate the congressional district discrepancy problem. AR-3 is a district that looks too close to call. Some of these outlets are granting Cruz the runner-up congressional district there. Others are not. The fight for second place there is really close between Cruz and Rubio. Some have called it. Others have not. FHQ is in the latter category.
Georgia
Here is another congressional district issue. Second place is close between Cruz and Rubio in both GA-4 and GA-13. Some have called that Cruz while other outlets have not. The Trump issue, given the range in the various counts, has to include some issues with whether or not some outlets are granting the winner all three automatic delegates -- as called for Georgia Republican Party rules -- or if they are allocating them as part of the at-large pool of delegates.
Oklahoma
This is an easy one. The congressional district results clearly gave one delegate to Cruz, Rubio and Trump in each of the five districts. That means the issue was with the at-large delegate allocation. Some outlets picked up on the fact that the allocation equation divides by the total number of votes instead of the qualifying candidates' share of the vote. The former leaves three uncommitted delegates that some have missed out on. Any outlet that has Cruz over 15 delegates missed this. Period.
Tennessee
TN-9 is the issue here. Some have called this one for Trump (2 delegates) with Rubio second (1 delegate). Others are still waiting on results to clarify in that district.
Texas
This one is not that hard. The Texas Secretary of State has both the results -- with 100% of precincts reporting -- statewide and by congressional district. There really should not be any issues in the Lone Star state. As FHQ has pointed out, there does seem to be a big difference between the TXSoS count and the AP count in TX-33. Either Cruz got two delegates and Trump one (TXSoS) or Rubio won all three (AP). FHQ has deferred to the state of Texas on this one. But that one district accounts for most of the differences. in the counts.
Vermont
The AP has updated their count and is consistent with the others with an 8 to 8 divide between Trump and Kasich. CBS probably needs to just update because 100% of returns are in and Rubio is still under the 20% threshold. He would have claimed four delegates had he risen above that level, but that does not look to be on the horizon.
Kansas
This is another easy one. The outlets that do not have Cruz at 24 delegates missed that all fractional delegates round up sequentially from top of the voting order to the last qualifier in Kansas; even fractions below .5. Cruz rounded up to 24. That left one less delegate for Kasich when the rounding process got to him as the last qualifier.
Kentucky
In Kentucky, the differences are based on how one reads the rounding rules. Under Kentucky Republican Party rules, if there is an overallocation of delegates -- as there was Saturday night -- then the candidate furthest from the rounding threshold loses a delegate. Normally, that threshold would be .5, but all four qualifying candidates had remainders above .5. They all rounded up triggering an overallocation. To take one delegate away from the candidate furthest from a .5 threshold would mean Trump would lose a delegate as he was more than .3 above .5. However, since all four candidates were over .5, that made .00 the threshold for any of the candidates to round up. That took the delegate from Rubio. Those taking Kasich down from seven to six made the mistake of doing the allocation sequentially and leaving Kasich with the leftovers. That is wrong.
Louisiana
The results in the Pelican state seem to settled. The LAGOP released the delegate count there late Sunday night. Trump edged Cruz in the at-large count, but Cruz equalized by winning a majority in LA-4. In the remaining five districts, Trump, Cruz and Rubio all received one delegate apiece. That leaves Trump 18, Cruz 18 and Rubio 5 in Louisiana. That Rubio received no delegates in some counts for Louisiana was entirely due to unclear rules regarding the allocation of congressional district delegates. It was unclear if Rubio needed 16.67% of the vote to round up to one delegate or whether it was enough for him to simply place third there.
The FHQ delegate count can be found here.
Happy counting, everyone.
First, it should be said that the combination of simpler rules and clearer results drove the agreement across all outlets. In most of those states -- six out of nine -- the delegates were pooled rather than split across congressional districts. Where they were not -- South Carolina, Alabama and Minnesota -- the results were clear. That clarity means that the rounding rules were never all that consequential or at the very least were easier to decipher in allocating delegates.
That suggests that in the states where there is disagreement among the various delegate trackers partially boils down to the results on the congressional district level. But there are some tricky rounding and other rules that are likely the culprits for the differences.
Let's look at the problem states one by one.
New Hampshire
Look, this one is a done deal for now. It may come back up at the convention, but the New Hampshire Republican Party has already certified the results and the delegate count. There is some question about whether the NHGOP or the secretary of state got the rounding wrong, but again this is a settled issue until the convention. CBS needs to catch up with everyone else. It will eventually go the other way if Rubio is still in the race because the rounding rules were not followed properly.
Nevada
Again, CBS is wrong on this one. It looks as if they are treating Nevada as a state with a qualifying threshold that it does not have. Nobody under 20% was allocated any delegates by CBS. That includes Ben Carson, who won two delegates also.
Arkansas
The Natural state is the first to demonstrate the congressional district discrepancy problem. AR-3 is a district that looks too close to call. Some of these outlets are granting Cruz the runner-up congressional district there. Others are not. The fight for second place there is really close between Cruz and Rubio. Some have called it. Others have not. FHQ is in the latter category.
Georgia
Here is another congressional district issue. Second place is close between Cruz and Rubio in both GA-4 and GA-13. Some have called that Cruz while other outlets have not. The Trump issue, given the range in the various counts, has to include some issues with whether or not some outlets are granting the winner all three automatic delegates -- as called for Georgia Republican Party rules -- or if they are allocating them as part of the at-large pool of delegates.
Oklahoma
This is an easy one. The congressional district results clearly gave one delegate to Cruz, Rubio and Trump in each of the five districts. That means the issue was with the at-large delegate allocation. Some outlets picked up on the fact that the allocation equation divides by the total number of votes instead of the qualifying candidates' share of the vote. The former leaves three uncommitted delegates that some have missed out on. Any outlet that has Cruz over 15 delegates missed this. Period.
Tennessee
TN-9 is the issue here. Some have called this one for Trump (2 delegates) with Rubio second (1 delegate). Others are still waiting on results to clarify in that district.
Texas
This one is not that hard. The Texas Secretary of State has both the results -- with 100% of precincts reporting -- statewide and by congressional district. There really should not be any issues in the Lone Star state. As FHQ has pointed out, there does seem to be a big difference between the TXSoS count and the AP count in TX-33. Either Cruz got two delegates and Trump one (TXSoS) or Rubio won all three (AP). FHQ has deferred to the state of Texas on this one. But that one district accounts for most of the differences. in the counts.
Vermont
The AP has updated their count and is consistent with the others with an 8 to 8 divide between Trump and Kasich. CBS probably needs to just update because 100% of returns are in and Rubio is still under the 20% threshold. He would have claimed four delegates had he risen above that level, but that does not look to be on the horizon.
Kansas
This is another easy one. The outlets that do not have Cruz at 24 delegates missed that all fractional delegates round up sequentially from top of the voting order to the last qualifier in Kansas; even fractions below .5. Cruz rounded up to 24. That left one less delegate for Kasich when the rounding process got to him as the last qualifier.
Kentucky
In Kentucky, the differences are based on how one reads the rounding rules. Under Kentucky Republican Party rules, if there is an overallocation of delegates -- as there was Saturday night -- then the candidate furthest from the rounding threshold loses a delegate. Normally, that threshold would be .5, but all four qualifying candidates had remainders above .5. They all rounded up triggering an overallocation. To take one delegate away from the candidate furthest from a .5 threshold would mean Trump would lose a delegate as he was more than .3 above .5. However, since all four candidates were over .5, that made .00 the threshold for any of the candidates to round up. That took the delegate from Rubio. Those taking Kasich down from seven to six made the mistake of doing the allocation sequentially and leaving Kasich with the leftovers. That is wrong.
Louisiana
The results in the Pelican state seem to settled. The LAGOP released the delegate count there late Sunday night. Trump edged Cruz in the at-large count, but Cruz equalized by winning a majority in LA-4. In the remaining five districts, Trump, Cruz and Rubio all received one delegate apiece. That leaves Trump 18, Cruz 18 and Rubio 5 in Louisiana. That Rubio received no delegates in some counts for Louisiana was entirely due to unclear rules regarding the allocation of congressional district delegates. It was unclear if Rubio needed 16.67% of the vote to round up to one delegate or whether it was enough for him to simply place third there.
The FHQ delegate count can be found here.
Happy counting, everyone.
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: MICHIGAN
This is part twenty-five of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
MICHIGAN
Election type: primary
Date: March 8
Number of delegates: 59 [14 at-large, 42 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15% (statewide)1
2012: proportional primary
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Changes since 2012
There are actually a number of changes to the Michigan method of delegate allocation for 2016 as compared to four years ago. The most consequential may be that the primary is scheduled for a compliant date this time around; a departure from the last two cycles. That non-compliance in 2008 and 2012 meant that Michigan Republicans had their national convention delegation cut in half. With a rules-compliant primary on March 8, Michigan Republicans will have a full 59 delegates in 2016, and that makes it the most delegate-rich state in between Super Tuesday I on March 1 and Super Tuesday II on March 15.
Those 59 delegates will, unlike in 2012, be pooled and all proportionally allocated to candidates who receive at least 15 percent of the vote statewide. Michigan was minimally proportional last time. The halved delegation forced the Michigan Republican Party to handle its delegate allocation in a plan that was divergent from its original rules. Rather than have three delegates apportioned to each of the Great Lakes state's 14 congressional districts, the party distributed just two to each. Those two delegates were winner-take-all to the victor within the congressional districts. But that left just two delegates -- out of the penalty-decreased 30 -- to be proportionally allocated at-large (based on the statewide results). That was consistent with the Republican National Committee rules on delegate allocation in 2012. States could allocate congressional district delegates in a winner-take-all fashion, but had to proportionally allocate at least the at-large delegates.
Only, the Michigan Republican Party did not follow that guidance from the Republican National Committee. Rather than proportionally allocate those two at-large delegates as called for by the Rules of the Republican Party, the Michigan GOP awarded them both to the winner of the statewide primary vote. That meant a couple of things. First, Michigan functioned as a winner-take-all by congressional district state in 2012, but one with a reduced delegation. The second point is that because the Michigan delegation was already cut in half due to the timing violation -- February primary -- the RNC did not have the means to penalize Michigan again for any allocation violation. The national party only had the one 50% penalty that it could dole out just once.
That decision was actually consequential as the competitive Michigan primary in 2012 should have evenly split the delegates between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. Each won seven congressional districts, but Romney won the primary and took the two at-large delegates, giving the former Massachusetts governor a 16-14 advantage in the Michigan delegate count.
Thresholds
None of those issue exist for 2016, though. Under the current rules, the Michigan Republican delegate allocation is made simpler by the fact that party has opted to pool all 59 delegates, regardless of at-large, congressional district or automatic distinctions, and proportionally allocate them. Only candidates who receive more than 15 percent of the statewide qualify for any of those delegates.
There are two exceptions to that 15 percent threshold. The first is under the condition that no one reaches a 15 percent share of the statewide vote. In that situation, the threshold drops to the winner's share of the vote minus five percent. If, for example, the winner receives 12.1 percent of the vote in the March 8 primary, then the threshold to qualify for delegates is 7.1 percent.2 That puts a premium on the candidates behind the winner being close to qualify for delegates. The odds of that are enhanced in that if the winner is below 15 percent statewide, then there will likely be a significant amount of clustering with a big field.
Obviously, the more the field winnows ahead of March 8, the less applicable the below-15-percent contingency becomes. Yet, that winnowing tends to raise the possibility of someone winning a majority of the vote. Should someone receive a majority of the statewide vote, that candidate is entitled to all 59 delegates.
The Michigan Republican Party rules also allow (by not specifically prohibiting) a backdoor winner-take-all option. If only one candidate clears the 15 percent threshold statewide, then that candidate would take all 59 delegates. Yet, the odds of that occurring decrease as the field of candidates narrows. Winnowing makes a tripping of the winner-take-all trigger more likely, but decreases the likelihood of a backdoor winner-take-all outcome.
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Assuming that all the remaining candidates clear the 15 percent threshold, the allocation of the pool of 59 Michigan delegates is governed by a comparatively simple set of rounding rules. If any candidate should fail to reach the qualifying threshold, then the allocation equation only counts the votes of the qualifying candidates as its denominator (rather than the total statewide vote).
Candidates who have fractional delegates of .5 and above round up and those below that threshold round down to the nearest whole number. If that rounding yields an overallocation of delegates, then the superfluous delegate is subtracted from the total of the candidate with the smallest vote share (above the qualifying threshold). In the case of some or all of the qualifying candidates having fractional delegates below the .5 threshold and a resulting under-allocation of delegates, an extra delegate will be added to the top votegetter statewide to bring the total number of delegates allocated to 59.
Binding
The rules of the Michigan Republican Party bind delegates from the state to candidates based on the presidential primary through the first ballot at the national convention. Compared to some other states, the Michigan Republican Party has a low but inclusive bar for the release of delegates. If a candidate withdraws or suspends their campaign, their delegates are released and become unbound. If that candidate endorses another candidate, any delegates allocated to them become unbound. If a candidate runs for another party's nomination or becomes the nominee of another party -- any party other than the Republican Party -- then any delegates allocated to that candidate become unbound.
In other words, it is a low unbinding trigger in Michigan.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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1 If no candidate achieves a 15 percent share of the vote, then the qualifying threshold becomes the winner's share minus five percent.
2 The winner's share is rounded to the nearest one-tenth of one percent if below 15 percent and the lowered threshold equals that share minus five percent.
--
MICHIGAN
Election type: primary
Date: March 8
Number of delegates: 59 [14 at-large, 42 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15% (statewide)1
2012: proportional primary
--
Changes since 2012
There are actually a number of changes to the Michigan method of delegate allocation for 2016 as compared to four years ago. The most consequential may be that the primary is scheduled for a compliant date this time around; a departure from the last two cycles. That non-compliance in 2008 and 2012 meant that Michigan Republicans had their national convention delegation cut in half. With a rules-compliant primary on March 8, Michigan Republicans will have a full 59 delegates in 2016, and that makes it the most delegate-rich state in between Super Tuesday I on March 1 and Super Tuesday II on March 15.
Those 59 delegates will, unlike in 2012, be pooled and all proportionally allocated to candidates who receive at least 15 percent of the vote statewide. Michigan was minimally proportional last time. The halved delegation forced the Michigan Republican Party to handle its delegate allocation in a plan that was divergent from its original rules. Rather than have three delegates apportioned to each of the Great Lakes state's 14 congressional districts, the party distributed just two to each. Those two delegates were winner-take-all to the victor within the congressional districts. But that left just two delegates -- out of the penalty-decreased 30 -- to be proportionally allocated at-large (based on the statewide results). That was consistent with the Republican National Committee rules on delegate allocation in 2012. States could allocate congressional district delegates in a winner-take-all fashion, but had to proportionally allocate at least the at-large delegates.
Only, the Michigan Republican Party did not follow that guidance from the Republican National Committee. Rather than proportionally allocate those two at-large delegates as called for by the Rules of the Republican Party, the Michigan GOP awarded them both to the winner of the statewide primary vote. That meant a couple of things. First, Michigan functioned as a winner-take-all by congressional district state in 2012, but one with a reduced delegation. The second point is that because the Michigan delegation was already cut in half due to the timing violation -- February primary -- the RNC did not have the means to penalize Michigan again for any allocation violation. The national party only had the one 50% penalty that it could dole out just once.
That decision was actually consequential as the competitive Michigan primary in 2012 should have evenly split the delegates between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. Each won seven congressional districts, but Romney won the primary and took the two at-large delegates, giving the former Massachusetts governor a 16-14 advantage in the Michigan delegate count.
Thresholds
None of those issue exist for 2016, though. Under the current rules, the Michigan Republican delegate allocation is made simpler by the fact that party has opted to pool all 59 delegates, regardless of at-large, congressional district or automatic distinctions, and proportionally allocate them. Only candidates who receive more than 15 percent of the statewide qualify for any of those delegates.
There are two exceptions to that 15 percent threshold. The first is under the condition that no one reaches a 15 percent share of the statewide vote. In that situation, the threshold drops to the winner's share of the vote minus five percent. If, for example, the winner receives 12.1 percent of the vote in the March 8 primary, then the threshold to qualify for delegates is 7.1 percent.2 That puts a premium on the candidates behind the winner being close to qualify for delegates. The odds of that are enhanced in that if the winner is below 15 percent statewide, then there will likely be a significant amount of clustering with a big field.
Obviously, the more the field winnows ahead of March 8, the less applicable the below-15-percent contingency becomes. Yet, that winnowing tends to raise the possibility of someone winning a majority of the vote. Should someone receive a majority of the statewide vote, that candidate is entitled to all 59 delegates.
The Michigan Republican Party rules also allow (by not specifically prohibiting) a backdoor winner-take-all option. If only one candidate clears the 15 percent threshold statewide, then that candidate would take all 59 delegates. Yet, the odds of that occurring decrease as the field of candidates narrows. Winnowing makes a tripping of the winner-take-all trigger more likely, but decreases the likelihood of a backdoor winner-take-all outcome.
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Assuming that all the remaining candidates clear the 15 percent threshold, the allocation of the pool of 59 Michigan delegates is governed by a comparatively simple set of rounding rules. If any candidate should fail to reach the qualifying threshold, then the allocation equation only counts the votes of the qualifying candidates as its denominator (rather than the total statewide vote).
Candidates who have fractional delegates of .5 and above round up and those below that threshold round down to the nearest whole number. If that rounding yields an overallocation of delegates, then the superfluous delegate is subtracted from the total of the candidate with the smallest vote share (above the qualifying threshold). In the case of some or all of the qualifying candidates having fractional delegates below the .5 threshold and a resulting under-allocation of delegates, an extra delegate will be added to the top votegetter statewide to bring the total number of delegates allocated to 59.
Binding
The rules of the Michigan Republican Party bind delegates from the state to candidates based on the presidential primary through the first ballot at the national convention. Compared to some other states, the Michigan Republican Party has a low but inclusive bar for the release of delegates. If a candidate withdraws or suspends their campaign, their delegates are released and become unbound. If that candidate endorses another candidate, any delegates allocated to them become unbound. If a candidate runs for another party's nomination or becomes the nominee of another party -- any party other than the Republican Party -- then any delegates allocated to that candidate become unbound.
In other words, it is a low unbinding trigger in Michigan.
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State allocation rules are archived here.
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1 If no candidate achieves a 15 percent share of the vote, then the qualifying threshold becomes the winner's share minus five percent.
2 The winner's share is rounded to the nearest one-tenth of one percent if below 15 percent and the lowered threshold equals that share minus five percent.
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Sunday, February 28, 2016
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: MAINE
This is part twenty-four of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable.
MAINE
Election type: caucus
Date: March 5
Number of delegates: 23 [14 at-large, 6 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 10% (statewide)
2012: non-binding caucuses
--
Changes since 2012
Like in a number of other caucus states in 2016, the Republican Party in Maine was forced by changes in the Republican National Committee delegate selection rules to alter the standard operating procedure in the Pine Tree state. Traditionally, Maine Republicans have conducted their delegate selection process through a caucus/convention system. That is not different for 2016. However, rather than beginning the stepwise process with a non-binding preference vote, as had been the case in past cycles, Republicans in Maine will conduct precinct caucuses on March 5 with a binding straw poll.
Based on the statewide results, candidates receiving more than 10% of the vote will be proportionally allocated a shared of the 23 delegates that will comprise the Maine delegation to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Thresholds
That the preference vote at the caucuses is binding on the delegate allocation is the big ticket change for Maine Republicans since 2012. Yet, that creation of a couple of thresholds dictating that allocation is also noteworthy. To qualify for any of the 23 pooled delegates -- the at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates are all one big bloc -- a candidate must receive at least ten percent of the vote. A candidate cannot receive 9.7 percent of the statewide vote, for example, and round up to the ten percent threshold. The delegates are rounded, not the percentages that determine the ultimate delegate allocation.
It seems unlikely in a winnowed field of candidates, that no one will reach 10% of the vote. There is, however, a contingency in place to lower the threshold to five percent should no one hit the ten percent mark.
Additionally, in the event that one candidate receives a majority of the statewide vote, then that candidate is entitled to all 23 of the Maine delegates. Furthermore, there are no rules in place prohibiting a backdoor to a winner-take-all allocation. Should only one candidate clear the ten percent hurdle in the statewide vote, then that candidate would be allocated all 23 delegates from the state.
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
The allocation of delegates in Maine is fairly routine. Candidates who cross the ten percent threshold are eligible for a proportional share of the state's delegates. As has been the case in a number of other states -- Massachusetts comes to mind -- only the votes of those candidates over the threshold are used in determining the number of delegates each candidate receives. Any votes for candidates below the threshold are excluded from the delegate allocation equation.
In other words, the total number of qualifying votes is the denominator and the vote share for a particular candidate is the numerator. The resultant percentage is used to calculate the share of the 23 delegates that that candidate will be allocated.
This is all done in sequence from the top votegetter over the threshold to the last qualifying candidate. Any rounding of the delegates is also done as part of that sequence. That means that the statewide winner has his or her delegates calculated and rounded and then the the second place finisher and so on. This method has the effect of rounding every candidate up (or down), leaving the last qualifying candidate with the leftovers.
Such a method tends to circumvent the over- or under-allocated delegates problem that other states have as a feature of their rounding method. But it also stands as another advantage for winners (by default). It makes the last qualifying position one to be avoided since that is the last candidate in the rounding sequence. One could call that the leftovers position. Whatever label is applied, it is another built-in advantage for those at the top of the vote order (in this case, statewide).
Binding
The delegates allocated based on the results of the March 5 preference vote in caucuses across Maine will be bound to those candidates through the first ballot at the national convention. Delegates can only be released from that binding if the candidate to whom they are bound withdraws before the national convention in Cleveland. The withdrawal of a candidate from the race means that any Maine delegates allocated to them are automatically released, becoming unbound.
MAINE
Election type: caucus
Date: March 5
Number of delegates: 23 [14 at-large, 6 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 10% (statewide)
2012: non-binding caucuses
--
Changes since 2012
Like in a number of other caucus states in 2016, the Republican Party in Maine was forced by changes in the Republican National Committee delegate selection rules to alter the standard operating procedure in the Pine Tree state. Traditionally, Maine Republicans have conducted their delegate selection process through a caucus/convention system. That is not different for 2016. However, rather than beginning the stepwise process with a non-binding preference vote, as had been the case in past cycles, Republicans in Maine will conduct precinct caucuses on March 5 with a binding straw poll.
Based on the statewide results, candidates receiving more than 10% of the vote will be proportionally allocated a shared of the 23 delegates that will comprise the Maine delegation to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Thresholds
That the preference vote at the caucuses is binding on the delegate allocation is the big ticket change for Maine Republicans since 2012. Yet, that creation of a couple of thresholds dictating that allocation is also noteworthy. To qualify for any of the 23 pooled delegates -- the at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates are all one big bloc -- a candidate must receive at least ten percent of the vote. A candidate cannot receive 9.7 percent of the statewide vote, for example, and round up to the ten percent threshold. The delegates are rounded, not the percentages that determine the ultimate delegate allocation.
It seems unlikely in a winnowed field of candidates, that no one will reach 10% of the vote. There is, however, a contingency in place to lower the threshold to five percent should no one hit the ten percent mark.
Additionally, in the event that one candidate receives a majority of the statewide vote, then that candidate is entitled to all 23 of the Maine delegates. Furthermore, there are no rules in place prohibiting a backdoor to a winner-take-all allocation. Should only one candidate clear the ten percent hurdle in the statewide vote, then that candidate would be allocated all 23 delegates from the state.
Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
The allocation of delegates in Maine is fairly routine. Candidates who cross the ten percent threshold are eligible for a proportional share of the state's delegates. As has been the case in a number of other states -- Massachusetts comes to mind -- only the votes of those candidates over the threshold are used in determining the number of delegates each candidate receives. Any votes for candidates below the threshold are excluded from the delegate allocation equation.
In other words, the total number of qualifying votes is the denominator and the vote share for a particular candidate is the numerator. The resultant percentage is used to calculate the share of the 23 delegates that that candidate will be allocated.
This is all done in sequence from the top votegetter over the threshold to the last qualifying candidate. Any rounding of the delegates is also done as part of that sequence. That means that the statewide winner has his or her delegates calculated and rounded and then the the second place finisher and so on. This method has the effect of rounding every candidate up (or down), leaving the last qualifying candidate with the leftovers.
Such a method tends to circumvent the over- or under-allocated delegates problem that other states have as a feature of their rounding method. But it also stands as another advantage for winners (by default). It makes the last qualifying position one to be avoided since that is the last candidate in the rounding sequence. One could call that the leftovers position. Whatever label is applied, it is another built-in advantage for those at the top of the vote order (in this case, statewide).
Binding
The delegates allocated based on the results of the March 5 preference vote in caucuses across Maine will be bound to those candidates through the first ballot at the national convention. Delegates can only be released from that binding if the candidate to whom they are bound withdraws before the national convention in Cleveland. The withdrawal of a candidate from the race means that any Maine delegates allocated to them are automatically released, becoming unbound.
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