Might delegates to the Republican convention not actually be bound?

[glowacks]

RNC Rules Comm. Member: Every Delegate At GOP Convention Not Bound On First...

I’ve been thinking about this myself, and that article popped up near the top of a Google search. Even if state law requires a delegate to vote according to the results of the primary, the rules of the party trump state law in terms of what the party acknowledges as the result of the process. Yes, someone could end up suing under state law for breach of fiduciary duty or somesuch, but that wouldn’t stop the Republican Party from accepting the result of the balloting. The point is that there is no actual physical mechanism that forces the delegates to vote the way the voters did or to force the Republican Party to acknowledge votes from those delegates according to the pledges determined by the state votes. There is only state law and party rules, and the latter will trump the former if necessary.

[Measure_for_Measure]

Some discussion is in Saint Cad’s thread: Dopers. Would you be willing to sacrifice the democratic process to deny Trump the nomination? - Politics & Elections - Straight Dope Message Board ( Dopers. Would you be willing to sacrifice the democratic process to deny Trump the nomination?)

[septimus]

@BobLibDem

They wouldn’t do it, but should the Rules Committee vote to unbind all the delegates I suppose they could. But that would require the majority of the delegates to agree to such a rule change and presumably if the Trumpians are in the majority they wouldn’t vote for such a rule change.

Don’t forget that many delegates bound to vote for Trump will hate Trump! In some states the delegates are chosen by the state Party; the Primary only determines for whom those invariant delegates are obligated to vote.

So there will probably be a Republican convention in which a majority are bound to vote for Trump … but a majority do not want him to win the nomination!

@BobLibDem

Nobody is proposing to sacrifice the democratic process. Either Trump has an outright majority on the first ballot or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, he has no more claim to the nomination than Sarah Palin and the delegates can vote their collective will.

This viewpoint is much too black-and-white.

If Trump has 60% of the delegates’ votes there’ll be nothing to be done, but if he has just 52%, say, it would be easy for GOP lawyers to swing a few votes. If nothing else, bound delegates could simply violate their obligation (and be viewed as heroes by many).

But they probably won’t do it. Too much risk they’d further antagonize the masses. And the same reasoning applies if Trump has 48% instead of 52% – many people would feel swindled if Trump were even near 50% and still denied.

(And if they don’t pick Trump, then whom do they pick? Cruz will be in a strong 2nd place, but he is also actively disliked. To pick someone “not on the stage” would be too blatant a repudiation of the process.)

[RTFirefly]

Might delegates to the Republican convention not actually be bound?

I’m not really interested in their kinks, not that there’s anything wrong with them. (Their kinks, that is. There’s a great deal wrong with being a Republican in this day and age, but that’s another story.)