3/1/2004

Complicated procedure used to pick presidential nominees

Ben Fischer
Daily Kent Stater

In tomorrow’s primary, Ohio Democrats will have their say over who will be the party’s presidential nominee.

On the surface, the process might seem fairly straightforward: A voter picks whichever candidate he or she wants, and whoever gets the most votes wins the primary. But it’s actually quite complicated.

In the primary, just like in the general election, voters are not technically voting for a candidate—they’re voting for a slate of delegates aligned with a certain candidate.

And those delegates will meet at the nominating conventions later this year to do the actual nominating. The Democrats will meet from July 26 to 29 in Boston, and Republicans will meet from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 in New York City. Only then is the nomination official.

Delegates

Tomorrow, 10 states with more than 1,150 delegates are voting, and Ohio has 140 delegates. That number is the result of a complicated formula taking into consideration the state’s population, electoral votes and past support of Democrats.

Republicans will also vote, but President Bush is unopposed and the Republican primary gets only minimal public attention.

Earlier in the campaign, the candidates named local-level party activists to serve as their delegates, organized within each of the state’s 18 congressional districts. The vote tomorrow will determine how many of each candidate’s delegates get to go to Boston to cast their nominating votes.

To win the nomination, a candidate needs a majority of all delegate votes—2,162 for the Democrats this year. Heading into Super Tuesday tomorrow, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry has 754, and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is in a distant second place with 220.

Proportional

representation

Republicans tend to favor winner-take-all contests in the primaries, devoting all of a state’s delegates to whoever gets the most votes. Democrats, however, typically use a proportional scheme.

For example, Kerry beat Edwards by six percentage points in the Wisconsin primary two weeks ago.

But because of Edwards’ strong second-place showing, he still received 27 delegates to Kerry’s 36.

A candidate has to get at least 15 percent of the vote to qualify for delegates.

Pledged and unpledged delegates

The local-level delegates are organized within the state’s congressional districts, and the primary tomorrow will determine which candidate’s delegates go to Boston. However, these district-level “pledged” delegates make up only about half of the total delegates.

Statewide at-large delegates and “unpledged” delegates make up the other half. The district-level delegates select the at-large delegates to support a candidate, typically the primary winner. This serves a sort of bonus to the winner of the primary.

The “unpledged” delegates are mostly the so-called “super delegates,” all Democratic senators, representatives and governors. They have a vote but are not tied to the results of any primary. That’s how Howard Dean has 175 delegates despite being shut out in all primaries and caucuses to date.

The unpledged delegates, while loosely tied to a candidate, could concievably switch their alliegence at any time up until the convention. This is why even though John Kerry is clearly the front-runner and likely the eventual nominee, the exact margin of victory is impossible to tell untill the nominating vote is actually taken.

E-mail: bafische@kent.edu