Q&A on the News
Q: If delegates have chosen the candidates who will receive their vote, how does the individual vote count? What if the popular vote goes to a candidate that differs from the delegate vote?
—Melanie Sirignano, Powder Springs
A: The Republican and Democratic campaigns attempt to "identify" and select delegates "who are aligned with their candidate," Josh Putnam, a political science lecturer at the University of Georgia, told Q&A on the News in an email.
“In other words, the campaigns can have (varying levels of) influence over the selection process,” wrote Putnam, who maintains Frontloading HQ (frontloading.blogspot.com), an elections blog.
The Democratic National Committee, he wrote, allows “candidates the ability to approve or reject the delegates who will be pledged to them. That means that the delegates at the national convention are not very likely to drift away from their candidate.”
The process is different for the Republicans, who don’t have “approval/rejection rules.”
“As such, there is a much greater potential for there to be delegates bound to one candidate, but supportive of another,” Putnam wrote.
The more organized campaigns “work to ensure that their delegates are the ones that get elected to attend the national convention.”
The delegates and the campaigns are mostly “in concert with each other.”
Andy Johnston with Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
