Understanding the Republican Presidential Primary Ballot

There are a few basic rules that apply in both the Democratic and Republican Primaries and their ballots:

·         The first is that on the Primary Ballot you are not directly voting to nominate a Presidential Candidate. 

·         The names listed on the ballots represent candidates that filed to run for President in the State of Ohio. 

·         You are actually voting for the Delegates-At-Large and Alternates-At-Large to the Convention who will vote one of two ways depending on the percentage of votes cast for candidate’s name.

·         If any candidate’s name receives a majority of votes statewide (more than 50%), then that candidate will receive all the votes from the At-large Delegates and Alternates.  They total 10.

·         If no candidate gets more than 50%, the 10 delegates will be proportional and only the candidates that receives at least 20% of the vote will receive a proportionate share of votes at the Convention. 

·         Candidate’s names that get less than 20% of the popular vote are simply out.

Here is where the Republican Party Rules differs from the Democratic Party Rules.  The Republican Party adopted rules that added District Delegates to their Convention.  These votes are determined by votes cast in the second race or list of Presidential names that appear on the ballot.

·         District means “Congressional District”

·         Candidate with the most votes cast within the Congressional District will receive the three (3) District Delegates vote at the Conventions. 

·         Since Ohio now has sixteen Congressional Districts and each District receives three (3) Delegates, there is a total of 48 District Delegates. 

·         This map shows the new Ohio Congressional Districts

·         Thisa copy of the Republican Ballot for Mercer County.

·          The At-Large and Alternate Delegates names are circled in red.

·          The names that qualified for the District Ballots in Ohio and Mercer County are circled in blue.

Side note:  Mercer County is divided into three (Congressional Districts now: 

·         The 4^th, currently represented by Jim Jordan,

·         The 5^th, currently represnted by Bob Latta,

·         The 8^th, currently represnted by John Boehner. 

·         So Mercer will play a role in the nine (9) votes that will be cast at the convention from the three Congressional Districts.

The Ohio Republican Primary will have a total of 66 delegates votes up for grabs on the ballot: 

·         10 At-Large,

·         And another 48 representing the 16 Congressional Districts, and another 8 that are referred to as "party and bonus" delegates.

·         In Ohio, these 8 bonus/party delegates/votes are cast by three (3) Republican Party Leaders: 

·        The National Committeeman

·        The National Committeewoman, and

·         The chairman of the Ohio's Republican Party

The other five (5) delegates/votes are chosen depending on whether the state has a Republican governor, and if it has GOP majorities in one or all chambers of its state legislature, and whether it has GOP majorities in its delegation to the U.S. Congress, among other factors.

This is a copy of the Republican Ballot for Mercer County.

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·         In the Republican Party, each state chooses either the “proportional” method or a "winner-take-all" method of awarding delegates.

·         You really almost have to keep a scorecard to keep track of how many delegates are being awarded.

Party Rules allowed states some discretion with the allocation process and Ohio's process is called semi-proportional because At-Large is proportional and District are “Winner Take All”.

·         ● 18 at-large delegates will be awarded proportionally based on the statewide vote -- unless one candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, in which case that candidate gets all the at-large delegates.

·         Candidates Romney, Gingrich, and Paul qualified for all 16 districts in Ohio. Mr. Santorum did not have enough signatures to file in three of the congressional districts in Ohio.

Current scorecard:

# The state is penalized for breaking RNC schedule guidelines. The penalty cuts the delegation number in half and removes voting privileges from the party leader delegates.   

Primary: Tuesday 6 March 2012 (confirmed)

District Conventions: April 2012 (tentative)
State Convention: May 2012 (tentative)
National Convention:  August 2012 in Tampa, FL

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ADDITIONAL INFO

The Democratic Primary and how Delegates are Awarded
 Democrats use a proportional method. Each candidate is awarded a number of delegates in proportion to their support in the state caucuses or the number of primary votes they won.