The Ohio Republican presidential primary election

Ten US states will hold presidential primary events (caucuses or primary elections) on this coming Tuesday, 2012.03.06, dubbed "super Tuesday" in the press.

One of these states holding a primary election is Ohio, and it has received special attention, in part because of the state's historical association with successful presidential candidates.


In any case, I thought I would describe the Ohio Republican presidential primary process. I do not have the time or energy to describe the others for Super Tuesday.

Any qualified voter may vote in the Republican primary (but could not then also vote in the Democratic primary). Any voter who votes in the Republican primary is considered to be thus stating a Republican party affiliation.

Ohio is allocated 66 delegates to the Republican National Convention. 63 of these are selected by the primary election; the remaining three are selected by virtue of their high offices in the Republican party.

Three delegates are selected for each of Ohio's 16 Congressional districts, 48 in all. Note that these are actual people, not just "slots". Specific slates of delegates, associated with various contenders, are on the ballot in each district, identified only by the associated contender. The slate of three delegates associated with the contender receiving the greatest number of votes in each district is selected for that district.

(Rick Santorum did not mount a slate of delegates associated with him in three of the districts; thus he cannot attain any delegates from such districts, and there is in fact no way that a voter in those districts could "vote for" Santorum delegates.) In six other districts, he filed a slate of less than three delegates; presumably if he "wins" the votes in any such district, he will receive those delegates.

The remaining 15 delegates are chosen based on the statewide vote. If any contender receives 50% or more of the statewide vote, his entire slate of 15 statewide delegates is selected. If no candidate receives 50% of the statewide vote, then the delegation is drawn from the slates of all contenders receiving at least 20% of the statewide vote, proportionately to their contender's votes. There is not a stated algorithm for dealing with rounding complications. I do not know whether these delegates are specific people or just "slots" to be filled with people by later party events.

The 63 delegates selected by this election are "pledged" to support the contender with which they are associated on a "moral" basis, but not by law or party rule.

Best regards,

Doug

The results of the Ohio Republican primary election (as indicated so far) are interesting.

On a statewide basis (at 2012.03.07 1250 UTC, with 99.8% of the voting units having reported), Romney received 38.0% of the vote and Santorum 37.0%. On this basis, of the 15 delegates awarded on a statewide basis, Romney will receive 8 and Santorum 7.

On a finer-grain basis, Romney essentially received a plurality of the vote in the counties that include the major metropolitan areas and nearby counties (19 counties altogether). In the remaining 69 counties, mostly rural, Santorum received a plurality of the votes.

However, the "non-statewide" delegates are awarded on the basis of congressional districts (18 overall) whose boundaries do not necessarily coincide with county boundaries. And in three congressional,districts, Santorum did not post a slate of potential delegates; in six others (I believe) he posted a slate of only 1 or 2 potential delegates (not the 3 that are allowed).

Based on the vote by congressional district, it appears that Romney will receive the preponderance of the non-statewide delegates.

One current projection is of 35 delegates overall for Romney and 21 for Santorum, with 7 still to be determined (3 delegates to the National Convention are not associated with any contender).

Best regards,

Doug

Evidently the Ohio delegate allocation of 35 to Romney and 21 to Santorum is "final". The shortfall of 7 from the 63 delegates the state would normally have "pledged" to specific contenders is apparently due to Santorum having posted "short slates" in a number of congressional district in which he won the district vote. That is, in those districts, "all" his delegates wil be in the state delegation, but that is less than the three that could be attained by winning the vote in a district if there were that many on the candidate's "slate".

(In some districts, Santorum did not post a slate at all, and thus in those districts he was not on the ballot at all, so he could not "win zero delegates" in such districts.)

I assume that the state delegation will actually be of full allocated strength (66 delegates), but with 10 delegates not "pledged" to any candidate (three of the delegates would be in any case unpledged - those that get their seats by virtue of their positions in the party, not via the primary election).

It is a strange "system" indeed.

Best regards,

Doug