The points you just raised are dependent on a contested convention. Not on a clear majority outcome. The whole point of gaining a majority of delegates in the primary is that the delegates who pledged themselves to the also-ran don't matter jack doodly squat at an uncontested convention. They can stand up and pledge their support to Marco Rubio or Marco Polo- the majority rules. Now, within that majority may exist a group of bound delegates and a group of unbound delegates- the latter far outweighed by the former. And sure, there's presumably some wiggle room in that group of unbounds if you're looking for it. But my point still stands: bound delegates are bound delegates, and they're bound by state rules rather than party rules. Hell, they're currently bound by party rules as well (more on that in a second). Nothing in the wikipedia article you linked to disproves that. Here, I'll quote where the misunderstanding might have come about: That's per DNC custom. Per RNC custom: A majority of the unpledged delegates are elected much like the pledged delegates, and are likely to be committed to a specific candidate. Many of the other unpledged delegates automatically claim the delegate status either by virtue of their position as a party chair or national party committee person. This group is known as unpledged RNC member delegates. The process by which delegates are awarded to a candidate will vary from state to state. Many states use a winner-take-all system, where popular vote determines the winning candidate for that state. However, beginning in 2012 many states now use proportional representation. While the Republican National Committee does not require a 15% minimum threshold, individual state parties may impart such a threshold. The unpledged RNC member delegates are free to vote for any candidate and are not bound by the electoral votes of their state. Unpledged RNC delegates are free to vote for any candidates. Pledged delegates? Not so much. Now, this goes out the window in a contested convention. And there's one guy- one guy! Arguing currently that pledged delegates aren't actually pledged: http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/13/rnc-rules-comm-member-every-delegate-at-gop-convention-not-bound-on-first-ballot/ Side-note: I can't find reports of this from any reputable news source, so I have to take this whole memo with a grain of salt. Most reports, however, state pretty unambiguously that bound delegates are just that. Here's a horribly-designed website that lays it out in pretty granular detail: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R-Alloc.phtml Ctrl+f "bound" to navigate that trainwreck. Note that the rules state not only that delegates who ignore their pledge shall be penalized, but that their decision change won't even be recognized. Note that those rules are the 2016 rules. Applicable as of April the first of this year. That's uncontested. It's not a misconception, it's actually pretty clear as per current rules. Contested? Whole different ball game. Here's a helpful guide that isn't wikipedia: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/10/a_contested_republican_convention_explained.htmlThis is clearer to see in this example: Rubio won 169 delegates, and then dropped out of the race. So are those delegates forced to vote for him at the Republican Convention? Of course not. They are free to change their mind and vote for any other candidate.
Pledged delegates are elected or chosen at the state or local level, with the understanding that they will support a particular candidate at the convention. Pledged delegates are, however, not actually bound to vote for that candidate, thus the candidates are allowed to periodically review the list of delegates and eliminate any of those they feel would not be supportive. Currently there are 4,050 pledged delegates.
The Republican Party utilizes a similar system with slightly different terminology, employing pledged and unpledged delegates. Of the total 2,472 Republican delegates, 1,719 are pledged delegates, who as with the Democratic Party, are elected at the state or local level. To become the Republican Party nominee, the candidate must win a simple majority of 1,237 of the 2,472 total delegates at the Republican National Convention.
This is a good section from the Slate article you quoted: Exactly which ones will be freed and when depends on a rather complicated set of state party rules—which, like the national ones, are not written in stone—but by the New York Times’ count, the number of unbound delegates would grow from 5 percent during the first round of voting to 57 percent in the second, and then to 81 percent in the third. Even those are rough numbers, though, since states can unbind their delegates if the candidate they were assigned to vote for withdraws from the race or fails to meet certain vote thresholds on the convention floor. Wait, but why would a Trump delegate defect to another camp? Trump fans don’t seem like the type of people who change their minds about Trump. True. But while the bulk of delegates arrive in Cleveland bound to a particular candidate, that doesn’t mean they necessarily personally favor that candidate. A Trump delegate could very well loathe Trump; a Ted Cruz delegate might prefer John Kasich. And so on. Some states allow candidates to select the delegates that will represent them—making them more likely to remain loyal even once unbound—but those delegates only account for about 14 percent of the total. The vast majority of the rest are selected during state or district conventions that are held well after the actual state primaries or caucuses. Those slots tend to be filled with rank-and-file Republicans who are involved with the state and local party, making them theoretically more open to the GOP establishment’s anybody-but-Trump entreaties than primary voters have been. So once a delegate becomes unbound, who can he or she vote for? Anyone else whose name has been formally placed into nomination—be it someone who is already an official candidate this year, like Cruz, Rubio, or Kasich, or someone who isn’t, be it Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, or whoever else the GOP poobahs try to cast as a white knight. Now, tell me more about how bound delegates become free agents.
I have no qualms with anything you posted, and generally agree. Up until April 1 of this year, thre has been a historical pattern, but there was no requirement for a bound delegate to vote for the same person at the Convention. The new rules seem to state something like that in the link you provided, but I can't find that wording anywhere else. And it isn't reflected in other R writings or sources. In the past, a delegate who chose to change their vote would be effectively ostracized from the RNC. They'd lose party funding, party support, etc. It would effectively end their career as a Republican, in most cases. But that was pressure being applied through financial means. Not a rule that they cannot break. One of the two factors that play into how Republicans choose delegates, is "Party Loyalty." With the entire GOP machine slowly turning against Trump, that might mean that at the RNC a "loyal" vote might be a vote against Trump. No matter how this plays out, the tiger is eating its tail. And the GOP will not survive this. What will fill that vacuum?
Dude. That site I provided links directly to the source. There need not be wording anywhere else, and it doesn't have to be reflected in other R writings or sources, because the link is quoting the official rules of the RNC, supplied at the very top of the link. Here. Note the title of that document. The Rules of the Republican Party. Not The Historical Patterns of the Republican Party, not Pressures to be Applied Through Financial Means of the Republican Party. Rules! And yes, most rules generally must be backed up by coercive measures, such as pressure applied through financial means. But the rule- as laid out by the RNC and currently still in place- is that bound delegates are bound delegates. And should they unbind, there are not only huge penalties, but explicit directions in the rule-book to ignore that inconsistency! And remember, that quote you just posted from Slate is what happens in the case of a CONTESTED convention. Not uncontested. Contested: bound delegates vote with their bound choice first round, and then in the likely event of a second round, they may unbind. Contested. Look man, I hope to God this is a contested convention for so many reasons. I think it'd be politics porn for everybody who's into that sort of thing (me, you, NPR, etc), it'd bloody the candidate who made it through, it'd open the window for a third-party Trump situation which would further divide the Republican vote, it'd maybe- maybe lead to some heartfelt soul-searching on the Republican side of the spectrum (just kidding). But don't let's go around telling people that even if it's uncontested, there's nothing to worry about and voting doesn't exist until the generals. It's just not true.
Not so. Each state part gets to draft their own rules; that is why it's so difficult to know how many delegates each candidate is or will be awarded so far. Some states' delegates would be released after round one, some after round two and so on. However, the candidates themselves have some say in who the delegates are, so many will be voting their conscience (or lack thereof) anyway, so being released might not mean too much. It gets very complicated very fast. It's almost as if they didn't really plan for this to actually ever happen :).... and then, when the first round of voting finishes, everything we have talked about gets thrown out, and an entire new set of rules comes in. Nobody is bound to anything they did previously.