A candidate currently needs to win more than 50% of the delegates at the Republican convention to win the nomination. Is this 50%+ of the delegates at the convention, or 50%+ of the delegates casting a vote?
That is, suppose a group of delegates decided that their responsibility wasn’t to vote for the candidate they are pledged to, but rather to not cast a ballot for one of the other candidates, so they abstained in the first ballot. There are expected to be 2472 delegates at the convention; if 472 of them decided to abstain, would a candidate that got 1001 votes win, or would the candidate need to still get 1237 votes?
I certainly don’t expect this to happen, but every news story I’ve read gives 1237 as the number, and I was wondering what abstentions would do. Or are abstentions not allowed?
Remember that - strictly speaking - there are no rules for the convention until the delegates agree to adopt the temporary rules or vote put new ones in effect.
That said, looking at the current rules suggests to me that if a delegate tried to abstain, an alternate would then vote.
But what if enough delegates and alternates abstained so that no one could get 1,237? Well, there’s always Rule 37e.
I’m pretty sure the rule is only there to cover a disaster, but I suppose it could be interpreted to mean the RNC could declare a deadlocked convention unable to conduct business, and authorize a new procedure to declare a nominee.
