US VIRGIN ISLANDS
Election type: territorial caucuses
Date: June 6
Number of delegates: 13 [7 at-large delegates, 6 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional territory-wide
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: territorial caucuses
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
[Post-Coronavirus Addendum]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Democrats in the US Virgin Islands kept their first Saturday in June position on the 2020 primary calendar, keeping the territory's contest there on the calendar for the third consecutive cycle. The delegation also remained the same size as it was in 2016.
And while much of the delegate selection plan remained the same -- the bulk of it carrying over from 2016 -- the intervention of the coronavirus affected the original plans the Democratic Party in the territory made. The caucuses will go on as planned on June 6, but the party will scale back a couple of facets of their approved delegate selection plan. Although the island does not have same day registration, the party had planned to work toward that end during the caucuses in 2020. But that has been scrapped. Early voting was also to have taken place from May 26-29, but that four day window has been cut to just two days and pushed back to just before the caucuses on June 4-5.
Yet, not all of the coronavirus changes were negative in terms of their potential impact on caucus turnout. The territorial party introduced drive-thru voting as a means of ameliorating some of the concerns caused by the coronavirus. Drive-thru voting will be available at all three caucus locations -- one on each of the three islands -- during the early voting period through caucus day on June 6. The drive-through option is just that, an option. It is included alongside the other in-person, electronic and postal options already available to Democrats in the Virgin Islands.
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies territory-wide for the allocation of the seven at-large delegates.
Delegate allocation (at-large)
To win any at-large delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the vote in the caucuses in one or both of two subdivisions into which the Democratic Party in the US Virgin Islands has divided the territory. The caucuses in St. Croix will have four (4) delegates to allocate while St. John/St. Thomas will together have three (3) delegates to allocate. Under DNC rules these seven (7) delegates are at-large, but are treated (allocated) as district delegates. Their allocation hinges not on the territory-wide vote, but on the votes within the two subdivisions.
Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the allocation of those delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
There are no congressional districts within the US Virgin Islands and as such there are no technically district delegates to allocate in the June 6 caucuses. However, see the above description of the the at-large delegate allocation process.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The seven at-large delegates to the national convention from US Virgin Islands will be selected at the June 6 territory-wide caucuses. Delegate candidates were to have filed by May 17 and will be selected in proportion to the vote of qualifying candidates in the caucuses.
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of territory-wide delegates, then any territory-wide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. However, given the simultaneity of the allocation and selection on June 6 in the Virgin Islands, that means that there is no real potential for reallocation of those territory-wide delegates. This reallocation would only apply if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain territory-wide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent territory-wide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the territory-wide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified territory-wide vote.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
WASHINGTON, DC
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 44 [5 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 13 congressional district, 24 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the sub-district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
In 2016, Washington, DC Democrats brought up the rear of the primary calendar with a contest on the second Tuesday in June. But in a cost-saving move, the DC Council opted in 2017 to consolidate the presidential primary with local primaries and to schedule the contest for the third Tuesday in June. That date was chosen not only because local schools would be done for the year by then (and thus would reduce conflicts with the school calendar and operation), but also because the early voting window would not overlap with Memorial Day.
Granted, that late date while advantageous from those angles also would put the DC presidential primary in violation of the national parties' rules on the timing of delegate selection events. It would have been too late. As a result, the DC Council in 2019 worked to shift the primary up two weeks to the first Tuesday in June and tweak the early voting window to prevent the Memorial Day issue.
All of that happened before 2020 and before the coronavirus intervened and shook up election administration across the country. In the face of those challenges, DC did not move its primary again (as some states have done), but the decision was made by the Board of Elections to encourage all voters to request an absentee ballot in early April and the DC Council followed that up later in the month with an emergency coronavirus relief bill that called for the distribution of absentee vote-by-mail applications to all eligible District voters.1 As of three weeks ago -- a month after the Board of Elections began pushing voters to request absentee ballots -- 34,000 voters had requested them.
In-person voting has not been eliminated, began on May 22 and will conclude on Election Day, June 2. The Board of Elections will not open the usual 144 voting centers on election day, but will instead work with an unknown but reduced number of sites.
All mail-in ballots are due to the DC Board of Elections office postmarked on or before Tuesday, June 2. As long as the ballot is postmarked by election day, it will be accepted up to seven (7) days after June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation from Washington, DC changed by just one delegate from 2016 to 2020. The number of superdelegates increased by one while the three pledged delegate categories all remained the same.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Washington, DC's 13 "congressional" district delegates are split across two districts of four wards each. There is a variation across those districts of just one delegate from the measure of Democratic strength District of Columbia Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state (plus Democratic registration in the nation's capital on January 1, 2020). That method apportions delegates as follows...
District 1 (Wards 1, 2, 6 & 8) - 7 delegates*
District 2 (Wards 3, 4, 5 & 7) - 6 delegates
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
Delegate selection took a hit in Washington, DC as it did in other places because of the coronavirus, but it's impact was not as far-reaching. Like South Dakota, DC's comparatively late primary on the original calendar forced decision makers within the Democratic Party there to include some pre-primary elements. The district delegates, for instance, were to have been selected on April 18. However, the pandemic forced those in-person caucuses online and voting occurred from April 25-May 21 to determine slates of district delegates with which allocated slots will be filled after the primary.
Initially, the district-wide delegates were to have been selected at two separate post-primary meetings of the DC State Central Committee. PLEO delegates would have been chosen on June 4 and at-large delegates a week later on June 11. Now, in the wake of the coronavirus, the there will be just one meeting -- on June 11 -- and both sets of district-wide delegates will be selected there. That meeting is still tentatively planned to be an in-person affair unless social distancing measures remain in place. In that scenario, the June 11 Central Committee meeting will shift to Zoom.
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the Washington, DC district-wide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
--
1 Here is the language from the bill -- B23-0733 -- specific to the mailing of absentee applications (with paid-postage return envelopes):
"For the June 2, 2020, Primary Election, mail every registered qualified elector an absentee ballot application and a postage-paid return envelope."
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 44 [5 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 13 congressional district, 24 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the sub-district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
In 2016, Washington, DC Democrats brought up the rear of the primary calendar with a contest on the second Tuesday in June. But in a cost-saving move, the DC Council opted in 2017 to consolidate the presidential primary with local primaries and to schedule the contest for the third Tuesday in June. That date was chosen not only because local schools would be done for the year by then (and thus would reduce conflicts with the school calendar and operation), but also because the early voting window would not overlap with Memorial Day.
Granted, that late date while advantageous from those angles also would put the DC presidential primary in violation of the national parties' rules on the timing of delegate selection events. It would have been too late. As a result, the DC Council in 2019 worked to shift the primary up two weeks to the first Tuesday in June and tweak the early voting window to prevent the Memorial Day issue.
All of that happened before 2020 and before the coronavirus intervened and shook up election administration across the country. In the face of those challenges, DC did not move its primary again (as some states have done), but the decision was made by the Board of Elections to encourage all voters to request an absentee ballot in early April and the DC Council followed that up later in the month with an emergency coronavirus relief bill that called for the distribution of absentee vote-by-mail applications to all eligible District voters.1 As of three weeks ago -- a month after the Board of Elections began pushing voters to request absentee ballots -- 34,000 voters had requested them.
In-person voting has not been eliminated, began on May 22 and will conclude on Election Day, June 2. The Board of Elections will not open the usual 144 voting centers on election day, but will instead work with an unknown but reduced number of sites.
All mail-in ballots are due to the DC Board of Elections office postmarked on or before Tuesday, June 2. As long as the ballot is postmarked by election day, it will be accepted up to seven (7) days after June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation from Washington, DC changed by just one delegate from 2016 to 2020. The number of superdelegates increased by one while the three pledged delegate categories all remained the same.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Washington, DC's 13 "congressional" district delegates are split across two districts of four wards each. There is a variation across those districts of just one delegate from the measure of Democratic strength District of Columbia Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state (plus Democratic registration in the nation's capital on January 1, 2020). That method apportions delegates as follows...
District 1 (Wards 1, 2, 6 & 8) - 7 delegates*
District 2 (Wards 3, 4, 5 & 7) - 6 delegates
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
Delegate selection took a hit in Washington, DC as it did in other places because of the coronavirus, but it's impact was not as far-reaching. Like South Dakota, DC's comparatively late primary on the original calendar forced decision makers within the Democratic Party there to include some pre-primary elements. The district delegates, for instance, were to have been selected on April 18. However, the pandemic forced those in-person caucuses online and voting occurred from April 25-May 21 to determine slates of district delegates with which allocated slots will be filled after the primary.
Initially, the district-wide delegates were to have been selected at two separate post-primary meetings of the DC State Central Committee. PLEO delegates would have been chosen on June 4 and at-large delegates a week later on June 11. Now, in the wake of the coronavirus, the there will be just one meeting -- on June 11 -- and both sets of district-wide delegates will be selected there. That meeting is still tentatively planned to be an in-person affair unless social distancing measures remain in place. In that scenario, the June 11 Central Committee meeting will shift to Zoom.
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the Washington, DC district-wide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
--
1 Here is the language from the bill -- B23-0733 -- specific to the mailing of absentee applications (with paid-postage return envelopes):
"For the June 2, 2020, Primary Election, mail every registered qualified elector an absentee ballot application and a postage-paid return envelope."
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: SOUTH DAKOTA
SOUTH DAKOTA
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 21 [4 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 10 congressional district, 5 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
South Dakota returned to its early June primary date for 2000 after three consecutive cycles in February. The presidential nomination contest has remained there ever since. And that includes the 2020 cycle. Not much, then, changed from 2016 to 2020. At least nothing changed with the delegate selection process in South Dakota until the coronavirus intervened in March 2020.
Since South Dakota Democrats have several pre-primary steps involved in their process, given the late date of the primary, the party had to act quickly to move those scheduled in-person events to virtual fora. The primary and indeed the entire timeline of delegate selection remained the same, but all in-person components were moved online.
Another change post-coronavirus was that the South Dakota secretary of state opted in early April to mail out absentee voting applications to all registered South Dakotans. That has been a common response at the heights of election administration in states across the country since March. The one added layer to the South Dakota absentee voting application process is that voters must also show identification in order to receive a ballot. Typically that process has been handled in person at county elections offices. However, that requirement has been relaxed and voters have the option of photocopying their ID and emailing to county auditors after they have mailed in their ballots.
The early voting window opened on April 17 and applications were mailed out in late April and early May, giving South Dakota voters time to complete the process. But those are a lot of steps for elections administrators to complete considering the number of vote-by-mail voters will likely increase as compared to other years.
In-person voting locations will continue to operate for early voting and voting on election day.
All mail-in absentee ballots are due to county election offices on or before 7pm on Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in South Dakota decreased by four delegates from 2016 to 2020. And the entirety of that loss was felt in the district delegate column. All of the other categories of delegates -- PLEO, at-large and superdelegate -- remained the same in 2020 as they were in 2016.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
South Dakota's 10 congressional district delegates are spread across one at-large congressional district. As such there is no variation across any districts. However, the measure of Democratic strength South Dakota Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial elections in the state is used to determine the number of statewide caucus delegates each of seven regional districts (comprised of five state legislative districts each) receives. Regional caucuses ensure that the slates have representation from multiple areas across the state.
It is that statewide caucus on March 21 that selects slates of delegates for each candidate that will be allocated based on the results of the June 2 primary. In the end the allocation of those 10 "district" delegates will be proportional based on the statewide result. That is the same as it is for the two categories of statewide delegates as described above.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
With such a late primary (at least in the context of the original calendar), South Dakota Democrats had already built into their delegate selection process some pre-primary elements. But those components were shifted to remote processes in March. Both the March 14 regional caucuses (seven districts comprised of five state legislative districts each) and the March 21 statewide caucus made up a two-tiered caucus process to select slates of district delegates for each candidate. Following the June 2 primary, the results will determine how many delegates from those slates will fill slots allocated to the candidates.
PLEO and then at-large delegates will be selected at a virtual June 20 state convention. Delegates to that state convention are either state committee members or delegates elected at the county level to attend the state convention.
[The timeline laid out above has not changed. However, all of the in-person meeting from the March 14 regional caucuses to the March 21 statewide caucus to the June 20 state convention were or have been changed to remote meetings since the outbreak of the coronavirus.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the South Dakota statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 21 [4 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 10 congressional district, 5 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
South Dakota returned to its early June primary date for 2000 after three consecutive cycles in February. The presidential nomination contest has remained there ever since. And that includes the 2020 cycle. Not much, then, changed from 2016 to 2020. At least nothing changed with the delegate selection process in South Dakota until the coronavirus intervened in March 2020.
Since South Dakota Democrats have several pre-primary steps involved in their process, given the late date of the primary, the party had to act quickly to move those scheduled in-person events to virtual fora. The primary and indeed the entire timeline of delegate selection remained the same, but all in-person components were moved online.
Another change post-coronavirus was that the South Dakota secretary of state opted in early April to mail out absentee voting applications to all registered South Dakotans. That has been a common response at the heights of election administration in states across the country since March. The one added layer to the South Dakota absentee voting application process is that voters must also show identification in order to receive a ballot. Typically that process has been handled in person at county elections offices. However, that requirement has been relaxed and voters have the option of photocopying their ID and emailing to county auditors after they have mailed in their ballots.
The early voting window opened on April 17 and applications were mailed out in late April and early May, giving South Dakota voters time to complete the process. But those are a lot of steps for elections administrators to complete considering the number of vote-by-mail voters will likely increase as compared to other years.
In-person voting locations will continue to operate for early voting and voting on election day.
All mail-in absentee ballots are due to county election offices on or before 7pm on Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in South Dakota decreased by four delegates from 2016 to 2020. And the entirety of that loss was felt in the district delegate column. All of the other categories of delegates -- PLEO, at-large and superdelegate -- remained the same in 2020 as they were in 2016.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
South Dakota's 10 congressional district delegates are spread across one at-large congressional district. As such there is no variation across any districts. However, the measure of Democratic strength South Dakota Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial elections in the state is used to determine the number of statewide caucus delegates each of seven regional districts (comprised of five state legislative districts each) receives. Regional caucuses ensure that the slates have representation from multiple areas across the state.
It is that statewide caucus on March 21 that selects slates of delegates for each candidate that will be allocated based on the results of the June 2 primary. In the end the allocation of those 10 "district" delegates will be proportional based on the statewide result. That is the same as it is for the two categories of statewide delegates as described above.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
With such a late primary (at least in the context of the original calendar), South Dakota Democrats had already built into their delegate selection process some pre-primary elements. But those components were shifted to remote processes in March. Both the March 14 regional caucuses (seven districts comprised of five state legislative districts each) and the March 21 statewide caucus made up a two-tiered caucus process to select slates of district delegates for each candidate. Following the June 2 primary, the results will determine how many delegates from those slates will fill slots allocated to the candidates.
PLEO and then at-large delegates will be selected at a virtual June 20 state convention. Delegates to that state convention are either state committee members or delegates elected at the county level to attend the state convention.
[The timeline laid out above has not changed. However, all of the in-person meeting from the March 14 regional caucuses to the March 21 statewide caucus to the June 20 state convention were or have been changed to remote meetings since the outbreak of the coronavirus.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the South Dakota statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Monday, May 25, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: RHODE ISLAND
RHODE ISLAND
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 35 [5 at-large, 3 PLEOs, 18 congressional district, 9 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Content to remain a part of the evolving regional primary collective that formed ahead of the 2012 presidential nomination cycle, majority party Democratic decision makers in Rhode Island did little to shake up the delegate selection process in the Ocean state for 2020. The date of the contest remained on the last Tuesday in April and other elements of the delegate selection plan stayed much the same as they were in 2016.
However, as with virtually every other state, Rhode Island had to adapt to the realities of the coronavirus pandemic. Like other states involved in the Acela primary regional primary -- Maryland and Pennsylvania among them -- Rhode Island also shifted its presidential primary election from April 28 to June 2. But the protocol the state adopted for dealing with the public health concerns around in-person voting wedged just in between where Maryland and Pennsylvania ended up. Whereas the state of Maryland sent all eligible voters a primary ballot and commonwealth of Pennsylvania opted not to do anything, Rhode Island decision makers chose to shift to a predominantly mail election. But unlike Maryland, Rhode Island mailed all eligible voters an absentee voting application rather than a ballot. Voters had until May 19 to apply.
In-person voting locations will continue to operate on election day, but will be reduced in number.
All mail-in ballots are due to state election office on or before 8pm on Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Rhode Island changed by three delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of pledged delegates increased by two -- three district delegates gained and one at-large delegate lost -- while the number of superdelegates increased by one.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Rhode Island's 18 congressional district delegates are split across two congressional districts and have no variation across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Rhode Island Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 9 delegates*
CD2 - 9 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
Rhode Island, like a number of the other former Acela primary states, has a delegate selection process that is more insulated from the effects of the coronavirus than some others. That is mainly a function of the fact that the district delegate selection process is run through the primary itself. Those 18 district delegates are directly elected on the primary ballot. Yes, the primary date shifted from April 28 to June 2, but filing had already been completed before the coronavirus and there was no need for the selection process to be shifted online or to some vote-by-mail system as has been common in some other states.
While the district delegates will be selected as previously planned but on June 2, the process for the selection of the eight statewide delegates -- five at-large and three PLEO delegates -- was more disrupted. The Rhode Island Democratic Party State Committee will continue to be the body that selects the statewide delegates, but that process will now take place virtually rather than in-person and will happen on June 15 about a month later than was originally planned.
[Initially, Rhode Island's district delegates were to have been selected on the April 28 primary ballot and the statewide delegates on May 17 at a meeting of the state committee. The coronavirus shifted both back on the calendar.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the Rhode Island statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 35 [5 at-large, 3 PLEOs, 18 congressional district, 9 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Content to remain a part of the evolving regional primary collective that formed ahead of the 2012 presidential nomination cycle, majority party Democratic decision makers in Rhode Island did little to shake up the delegate selection process in the Ocean state for 2020. The date of the contest remained on the last Tuesday in April and other elements of the delegate selection plan stayed much the same as they were in 2016.
However, as with virtually every other state, Rhode Island had to adapt to the realities of the coronavirus pandemic. Like other states involved in the Acela primary regional primary -- Maryland and Pennsylvania among them -- Rhode Island also shifted its presidential primary election from April 28 to June 2. But the protocol the state adopted for dealing with the public health concerns around in-person voting wedged just in between where Maryland and Pennsylvania ended up. Whereas the state of Maryland sent all eligible voters a primary ballot and commonwealth of Pennsylvania opted not to do anything, Rhode Island decision makers chose to shift to a predominantly mail election. But unlike Maryland, Rhode Island mailed all eligible voters an absentee voting application rather than a ballot. Voters had until May 19 to apply.
In-person voting locations will continue to operate on election day, but will be reduced in number.
All mail-in ballots are due to state election office on or before 8pm on Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Rhode Island changed by three delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of pledged delegates increased by two -- three district delegates gained and one at-large delegate lost -- while the number of superdelegates increased by one.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Rhode Island's 18 congressional district delegates are split across two congressional districts and have no variation across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Rhode Island Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 9 delegates*
CD2 - 9 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
Rhode Island, like a number of the other former Acela primary states, has a delegate selection process that is more insulated from the effects of the coronavirus than some others. That is mainly a function of the fact that the district delegate selection process is run through the primary itself. Those 18 district delegates are directly elected on the primary ballot. Yes, the primary date shifted from April 28 to June 2, but filing had already been completed before the coronavirus and there was no need for the selection process to be shifted online or to some vote-by-mail system as has been common in some other states.
While the district delegates will be selected as previously planned but on June 2, the process for the selection of the eight statewide delegates -- five at-large and three PLEO delegates -- was more disrupted. The Rhode Island Democratic Party State Committee will continue to be the body that selects the statewide delegates, but that process will now take place virtually rather than in-person and will happen on June 15 about a month later than was originally planned.
[Initially, Rhode Island's district delegates were to have been selected on the April 28 primary ballot and the statewide delegates on May 17 at a meeting of the state committee. The coronavirus shifted both back on the calendar.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the Rhode Island statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Sunday, May 24, 2020
**UPDATED** 2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: PENNSYLVANIA
PENNSYLVANIA
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 210 [41 at-large, 20 PLEOs, 125 congressional district, 24 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
For much of the post-reform era, the consolidated primary in Pennsylvania has occupied the final Tuesday in April spot on the primary calendar. Only once has the state strayed from that date and that was two decades ago in 2000. Even then, the move was only up a few weeks to the first Tuesday in April (in an era when most states that moved were pushing into March).
But that changed once the coronavirus pushed itself into the 2020 electoral landscape. Like all the other Acela primary states that had carved out that late April calendar position for a regional primary among themselves, Pennsylvania decision makers opted to move the primary back in the interest of public health. And like Maryland and Rhode Island (and initially Connecticut and Delaware before each moved a second time), the primary in the Keystone state ended up on June 2. This will be the latest position Pennsylvania has occupied on the presidential primary calendar in the post-reform era.
Unlike Maryland and Rhode Island, Pennsylvania made no effort to move to an all-mail election on that date. Elections officials in some Pennsylvania counties pushed for that change, but it was never enacted. What did change between 2016 and 2020 in Pennsylvania election administration was the introduction of no-excuse absentee voting. And that has been pushed since the breakout of the pandemic. Voters, in turn, are responding.
All mail-in ballots are due to county elections offices locations on or before 8pm on Tuesday, June 2 for most counties throughout the commonwealth. **UPDATE (6/1/20): Governor Wolf (D) will issue an executive order extending the due date for absentee ballots in some counties for the primary to Tuesday, June 9. All mail-in ballots will be due to county elections offices by 8pm on Tuesday, June 9.**
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Pennsylvania did not change at all from 2016 to 2020. However, the number of pledged delegates decreased by three -- two district delegates and one at-large delegate -- while the number of superdelegates increased by three.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Pennsylvania's 125 congressional district delegates are split across 18 congressional districts and have a variation of 10 delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Pennsylvania Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 8 delegates
CD2 - 8 delegates
CD3 - 14 delegates
CD4 - 10 delegates
CD5 - 9 delegates*
CD6 - 8 delegates
CD7 - 7 delegates*
CD8 - 6 delegates
CD9 - 4 delegates
CD10 - 7 delegates*
CD11 - 5 delegates*
CD12 - 4 delegates
CD13 - 4 delegates
CD14 - 5 delegates*
CD15 - 4 delegates
CD16 - 5 delegates*
CD17 - 8 delegates
CD18 - 9 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates. The 10 delegate variation among congressional districts is among the largest in the country.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of Pennsylvania's 125 district delegates was not really affected by the advent of the coronavirus. They are all directly elected on the presidential primary ballot. All that happened was that the date of selection shifted from April 28 to June 2 when the primary date was changed. PLEO and at-large delegate selection was also similarly impacted. Although those statewide delegates are not on the ballot, their time of selection was pushed back about a month from June 13 to sometime before July 18. The Democratic State Committee will continue to be the body that selects those two groups of pledged delegates. As of this writing, it is not specified whether that committee meeting will take place virtually or in person, but that section of the delegate selection plan reads like the meeting will take place in person. However, those plans would seemingly hinge on where things stand with the coronavirus.
[Initially, Pennsylvania's district delegates were to have been selected on the April 28 primary ballot and the statewide delegates on June 13 at a meeting of the state central committee. The coronavirus shifted both back on the calendar.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-July when the Pennsylvania statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 210 [41 at-large, 20 PLEOs, 125 congressional district, 24 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
For much of the post-reform era, the consolidated primary in Pennsylvania has occupied the final Tuesday in April spot on the primary calendar. Only once has the state strayed from that date and that was two decades ago in 2000. Even then, the move was only up a few weeks to the first Tuesday in April (in an era when most states that moved were pushing into March).
But that changed once the coronavirus pushed itself into the 2020 electoral landscape. Like all the other Acela primary states that had carved out that late April calendar position for a regional primary among themselves, Pennsylvania decision makers opted to move the primary back in the interest of public health. And like Maryland and Rhode Island (and initially Connecticut and Delaware before each moved a second time), the primary in the Keystone state ended up on June 2. This will be the latest position Pennsylvania has occupied on the presidential primary calendar in the post-reform era.
Unlike Maryland and Rhode Island, Pennsylvania made no effort to move to an all-mail election on that date. Elections officials in some Pennsylvania counties pushed for that change, but it was never enacted. What did change between 2016 and 2020 in Pennsylvania election administration was the introduction of no-excuse absentee voting. And that has been pushed since the breakout of the pandemic. Voters, in turn, are responding.
All mail-in ballots are due to county elections offices locations on or before 8pm on Tuesday, June 2 for most counties throughout the commonwealth. **UPDATE (6/1/20): Governor Wolf (D) will issue an executive order extending the due date for absentee ballots in some counties for the primary to Tuesday, June 9. All mail-in ballots will be due to county elections offices by 8pm on Tuesday, June 9.**
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Pennsylvania did not change at all from 2016 to 2020. However, the number of pledged delegates decreased by three -- two district delegates and one at-large delegate -- while the number of superdelegates increased by three.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Pennsylvania's 125 congressional district delegates are split across 18 congressional districts and have a variation of 10 delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Pennsylvania Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 8 delegates
CD2 - 8 delegates
CD3 - 14 delegates
CD4 - 10 delegates
CD5 - 9 delegates*
CD6 - 8 delegates
CD7 - 7 delegates*
CD8 - 6 delegates
CD9 - 4 delegates
CD10 - 7 delegates*
CD11 - 5 delegates*
CD12 - 4 delegates
CD13 - 4 delegates
CD14 - 5 delegates*
CD15 - 4 delegates
CD16 - 5 delegates*
CD17 - 8 delegates
CD18 - 9 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates. The 10 delegate variation among congressional districts is among the largest in the country.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of Pennsylvania's 125 district delegates was not really affected by the advent of the coronavirus. They are all directly elected on the presidential primary ballot. All that happened was that the date of selection shifted from April 28 to June 2 when the primary date was changed. PLEO and at-large delegate selection was also similarly impacted. Although those statewide delegates are not on the ballot, their time of selection was pushed back about a month from June 13 to sometime before July 18. The Democratic State Committee will continue to be the body that selects those two groups of pledged delegates. As of this writing, it is not specified whether that committee meeting will take place virtually or in person, but that section of the delegate selection plan reads like the meeting will take place in person. However, those plans would seemingly hinge on where things stand with the coronavirus.
[Initially, Pennsylvania's district delegates were to have been selected on the April 28 primary ballot and the statewide delegates on June 13 at a meeting of the state central committee. The coronavirus shifted both back on the calendar.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-July when the Pennsylvania statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: NEW MEXICO
NEW MEXICO
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 46 [7 at-large, 4 PLEOs, 23 congressional district, 12 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
For the third straight cycle, New Mexico Democrats will occupy what has historically been the typical spot for the consolidated primary in the Land of Enchantment: the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June. There was no change to the date of the contest nor any effort to push the primary to an earlier date.
There also was very little movement with respect to the state party's delegate selection plan for 2020. And that was true at least until the coronavirus pandemic hit. After that, there were some fairly significant tweaks to the process if not the plan. County clerks and the New Mexico secretary of state petitioned the state courts to allow an all-mail primary on June 2. But that request was denied based on state law that requires voters to formally apply fo an absentee ballot. However, the judge did allow absentee ballot applications to be sent to every New Mexico voter registered with a major party, a process that began in late April.
May 28 is the last day for voters to request an absentee ballot. In-person early and in-person election day voting will continue to be offered under the court ruling but will occur under the conditions set forth in the public health proclamations issued by the governor according to the court decision.
All ballots are due to county elections offices locations on or before 7pm on Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in New Mexico changed by just two delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of pledged delegates stayed the same in all three categories but the number of superdelegates rose by two.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
New Mexico's 23 congressional district delegates are split across eight congressional districts and have a variation of just two delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength New Mexico Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 9 delegates*
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 9 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of the 23 district delegates in New Mexico will occur on June 13 in virtual post-primary district conventions. Democrats registered by May 5 and who reside in a congressional district can register with the state party to participate as "qualified post-primary electors" in those district conventions. The state party staff will then verify the credentials of those who register to be "electors."
Those same "qualified post-primary electors" will vote again on June 19 in the first part of a virtual state convention to select the four PLEO delegates. The second part of that virtual state convention will take place a day later on June 20 to select the seven at-large delegates.
[The coronavirus pandemic forced New Mexico Democrats to significantly truncate their delegate selection process. Initially, the party planned on a four step caucus/convention process. That was to have started with in-person ward/precinct meetings on June 3-6 where county convention delegates would be selected. The county conventions on June 6 were to have elected delegates to both the in-person district and state conventions on June 13 and June 20, respectively. Only those who had been elected to the county conventions could participate in the votes to send delegates to the district and state conventions. Only those who had been elected to the district and state conventions could vote on national convention delegates. Now that the coronavirus has intervened, the some of those steps have been removed and conceivably the pool of participants in electing national convention delegates has expanded. The gatekeeping of the ward/precinct and county meetings has been replaced by the state party verifying who can participate in the votes on national convention delegates based on who applies.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid- to late June when the New Mexico statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 46 [7 at-large, 4 PLEOs, 23 congressional district, 12 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan [includes post-coronavirus plans]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
For the third straight cycle, New Mexico Democrats will occupy what has historically been the typical spot for the consolidated primary in the Land of Enchantment: the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June. There was no change to the date of the contest nor any effort to push the primary to an earlier date.
There also was very little movement with respect to the state party's delegate selection plan for 2020. And that was true at least until the coronavirus pandemic hit. After that, there were some fairly significant tweaks to the process if not the plan. County clerks and the New Mexico secretary of state petitioned the state courts to allow an all-mail primary on June 2. But that request was denied based on state law that requires voters to formally apply fo an absentee ballot. However, the judge did allow absentee ballot applications to be sent to every New Mexico voter registered with a major party, a process that began in late April.
May 28 is the last day for voters to request an absentee ballot. In-person early and in-person election day voting will continue to be offered under the court ruling but will occur under the conditions set forth in the public health proclamations issued by the governor according to the court decision.
All ballots are due to county elections offices locations on or before 7pm on Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in New Mexico changed by just two delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of pledged delegates stayed the same in all three categories but the number of superdelegates rose by two.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
New Mexico's 23 congressional district delegates are split across eight congressional districts and have a variation of just two delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength New Mexico Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 9 delegates*
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 9 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of the 23 district delegates in New Mexico will occur on June 13 in virtual post-primary district conventions. Democrats registered by May 5 and who reside in a congressional district can register with the state party to participate as "qualified post-primary electors" in those district conventions. The state party staff will then verify the credentials of those who register to be "electors."
Those same "qualified post-primary electors" will vote again on June 19 in the first part of a virtual state convention to select the four PLEO delegates. The second part of that virtual state convention will take place a day later on June 20 to select the seven at-large delegates.
[The coronavirus pandemic forced New Mexico Democrats to significantly truncate their delegate selection process. Initially, the party planned on a four step caucus/convention process. That was to have started with in-person ward/precinct meetings on June 3-6 where county convention delegates would be selected. The county conventions on June 6 were to have elected delegates to both the in-person district and state conventions on June 13 and June 20, respectively. Only those who had been elected to the county conventions could participate in the votes to send delegates to the district and state conventions. Only those who had been elected to the district and state conventions could vote on national convention delegates. Now that the coronavirus has intervened, the some of those steps have been removed and conceivably the pool of participants in electing national convention delegates has expanded. The gatekeeping of the ward/precinct and county meetings has been replaced by the state party verifying who can participate in the votes on national convention delegates based on who applies.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid- to late June when the New Mexico statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Friday, May 22, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: MONTANA
MONTANA
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 25 [4 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 13 congressional district, 6 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the sub-district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Montana Democrats and decision makers in the state government did what they have typically done between presidential election cycles: not much. There were no efforts to shift the consolidated Montana primary out of its early June position on the primary calendar and few changes for Democrats to the delegate selection plan.
That changed somewhat once the coronavirus began to reshape the 2020 electoral landscape. This did not lead to any change to the date of the primary, but it did trigger a change to the voting process in the Treasure state. Governor Steve Bullock (D) in late March issued an executive order that allowed counties to decide whether to move toward an all-mail election for June 2. A week later every county had. Each county's elections office still has to remain open to any voters who may prefer or need to vote in-person on election day as part of the governor's proclamation.
But every eligible Montana voter will receive a ballot -- not a form to apply for a ballot -- and not be required to pay postage to return it. Counties will pick up the tab for postage.
[This strays from how absentee voting is usually handled in Montana. Typically, voters have to request a ballot, but that step is being skipped during the coronavirus pandemic.]
All ballots are due to county elections offices on before Tuesday, June 2. That is received and not postmarked by 8pm on June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Montana changed by just two delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of district delegates decreased by two and the other two categories of pledged delegates stayed exactly the same as did the number of superdelegates.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Montana's 13 congressional district delegates are split across two districts carved out of the one congressional district state. Those districts have a variation of just two delegates across them from the measure of Democratic strength Montana Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
Eastern district - 6 delegates
Western district - 7 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of the 19 pledged delegates in Montana will occur at the June 6 state convention. the 13 district delegates will be selected in two district conventions held as part of the state confab. PLEO delegates will be selected at the state convention by a quorum of district delegates and then state conventions delegates -- selected at June 4 post-primary county conventions -- will then select the four at-large delegates. That process has seemingly not changed. It is unclear as of this writing whether the events scheduled for the state convention will be in-person or virtual. There is no news account nor party press release on any changes and the DNC does not appear to have any further changes (or requests) on file.
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in late-June when the Montana statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
Number of delegates: 25 [4 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 13 congressional district, 6 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the sub-district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Montana Democrats and decision makers in the state government did what they have typically done between presidential election cycles: not much. There were no efforts to shift the consolidated Montana primary out of its early June position on the primary calendar and few changes for Democrats to the delegate selection plan.
That changed somewhat once the coronavirus began to reshape the 2020 electoral landscape. This did not lead to any change to the date of the primary, but it did trigger a change to the voting process in the Treasure state. Governor Steve Bullock (D) in late March issued an executive order that allowed counties to decide whether to move toward an all-mail election for June 2. A week later every county had. Each county's elections office still has to remain open to any voters who may prefer or need to vote in-person on election day as part of the governor's proclamation.
But every eligible Montana voter will receive a ballot -- not a form to apply for a ballot -- and not be required to pay postage to return it. Counties will pick up the tab for postage.
[This strays from how absentee voting is usually handled in Montana. Typically, voters have to request a ballot, but that step is being skipped during the coronavirus pandemic.]
All ballots are due to county elections offices on before Tuesday, June 2. That is received and not postmarked by 8pm on June 2.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Montana's 13 congressional district delegates are split across two districts carved out of the one congressional district state. Those districts have a variation of just two delegates across them from the measure of Democratic strength Montana Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
Eastern district - 6 delegates
Western district - 7 delegates*
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of the 19 pledged delegates in Montana will occur at the June 6 state convention. the 13 district delegates will be selected in two district conventions held as part of the state confab. PLEO delegates will be selected at the state convention by a quorum of district delegates and then state conventions delegates -- selected at June 4 post-primary county conventions -- will then select the four at-large delegates. That process has seemingly not changed. It is unclear as of this writing whether the events scheduled for the state convention will be in-person or virtual. There is no news account nor party press release on any changes and the DNC does not appear to have any further changes (or requests) on file.
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in late-June when the Montana statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Puerto Rico Democratic Presidential Primary Now Set for July 12
The Puerto Rico Democratic Party announced on Thursday, May 21 that, in consultation with the Elections Commission in the US territory, it is scheduling its presidential primary election for Sunday, July 12.
Party president Charlie Rodriguez indicated that since Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (D) was still fighting for delegates to the national convention, the territorial party was stuck under current Puerto Rico law with the primary election as the means through which delegates would be allocated. Additionally, he cited the recent federal court decisions in New York reinstating the presidential primary there. Both New York and Puerto Rico directly elect district delegates on the primary ballot. As a result, not only would presidential candidates potentially be adversely affected by any cancelation of the primary, but so too would qualifying delegate candidates also on the ballot. And although that may have been the party preference -- to cancel the primary and allocate delegates in a different manner -- it was a bridge too far given a likely court challenge to such a move.
This move had been telegraphed to some extent. As a coda to a series of waiver grants, it was revealed last week during a virtual meeting of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) that Puerto Rico Democrats were considering either July 5 or 12 as the date of their primary. The party obviously chose the latter. And that date -- either date, really -- falls after the June 9 date set aside in DNC rules as the final date on which states can conduct primaries or caucuses. As was noted then during the meeting, Puerto Rico Democrats will have to take the final decision and any other changes to their delegate selection plan before the DNCRBC for the committee's approval.
Like a number of other states, Puerto Rico also played a game of primary calendar musical chairs. The Democratic presidential primary was originally set in 2019 for the final Sunday in March, March 29. But once 2020 rolled around and the coronavirus intervened, the territorial government shifted the primary back a month to April 26. However, that new law also included a contingency plan. If the pandemic and its attendant issues stretched to and beyond that late April date, then the Puerto Rico Democratic Party along with the Elections Commission could choose an alternate date. That led to an indefinitely postponement of the election in early April and set the table for the decision on Thursday for the mid-July date.
Puerto Rico now slots into a space on the primary calendar ahead of only Connecticut's in August. It becomes a seventh contest that will fall after the June 9 deadline.
--
The press release from the Puerto Rico Democratic Party on the primary rescheduling will be archived here.
--
The Puerto Rico Democratic presidential primary has been added back to the 2020 FHQ presidential primary calendar.
--
Related Posts:
4/3/20: Puerto Rico Democrats Indefinitely Postpone Presidential Primary
3/25/20: Governor Vazquez's Signature Pushes Puerto Rico Democratic Presidential Primary Back a Month
3/19/20: Puerto Rico Legislation Would Shift Presidential Primary Back to April or Beyond
3/16/20: Puerto Rico Democrats Signal Presidential Primary Date Change
Party president Charlie Rodriguez indicated that since Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (D) was still fighting for delegates to the national convention, the territorial party was stuck under current Puerto Rico law with the primary election as the means through which delegates would be allocated. Additionally, he cited the recent federal court decisions in New York reinstating the presidential primary there. Both New York and Puerto Rico directly elect district delegates on the primary ballot. As a result, not only would presidential candidates potentially be adversely affected by any cancelation of the primary, but so too would qualifying delegate candidates also on the ballot. And although that may have been the party preference -- to cancel the primary and allocate delegates in a different manner -- it was a bridge too far given a likely court challenge to such a move.
This move had been telegraphed to some extent. As a coda to a series of waiver grants, it was revealed last week during a virtual meeting of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) that Puerto Rico Democrats were considering either July 5 or 12 as the date of their primary. The party obviously chose the latter. And that date -- either date, really -- falls after the June 9 date set aside in DNC rules as the final date on which states can conduct primaries or caucuses. As was noted then during the meeting, Puerto Rico Democrats will have to take the final decision and any other changes to their delegate selection plan before the DNCRBC for the committee's approval.
Like a number of other states, Puerto Rico also played a game of primary calendar musical chairs. The Democratic presidential primary was originally set in 2019 for the final Sunday in March, March 29. But once 2020 rolled around and the coronavirus intervened, the territorial government shifted the primary back a month to April 26. However, that new law also included a contingency plan. If the pandemic and its attendant issues stretched to and beyond that late April date, then the Puerto Rico Democratic Party along with the Elections Commission could choose an alternate date. That led to an indefinitely postponement of the election in early April and set the table for the decision on Thursday for the mid-July date.
Puerto Rico now slots into a space on the primary calendar ahead of only Connecticut's in August. It becomes a seventh contest that will fall after the June 9 deadline.
--
The press release from the Puerto Rico Democratic Party on the primary rescheduling will be archived here.
--
The Puerto Rico Democratic presidential primary has been added back to the 2020 FHQ presidential primary calendar.
--
Related Posts:
4/3/20: Puerto Rico Democrats Indefinitely Postpone Presidential Primary
3/25/20: Governor Vazquez's Signature Pushes Puerto Rico Democratic Presidential Primary Back a Month
3/19/20: Puerto Rico Legislation Would Shift Presidential Primary Back to April or Beyond
3/16/20: Puerto Rico Democrats Signal Presidential Primary Date Change
Thursday, May 21, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: MARYLAND
MARYLAND
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 119 [21 at-large, 10 PLEOs, 65 congressional district, 23 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
[Addendum to plan]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Unlike the past couple of cycles, Maryland lawmakers made no effort to uproot the presidential primary in the Old Line state from its position on the primary calendar. The late April spot alongside neighboring states Delaware and Pennsylvania survived into the 2020 cycle. As the nomination process formally began and the coronavirus pandemic became a more serious threat to the normal administration of the election, changes were made. In mid-March, Governor Larry Hogan (R) initially shifted the April 28 primary back five weeks to June 2. But then later in March, the Maryland State Board of Elections signaled an all-mail primary before retreating from that stance a bit in April. The Board voted then to hold a predominantly mail-in primary while still allowing for a reduced number of election day voting sites for those unable to vote by mail. Each county will have at least one election day voting location but no more than four.
All eligible Maryland voters will receive a ballot -- not an application for an absentee ballot as in most other states that have made similar changes -- with prepaid postage. Those ballots can then be mailed back to county elections offices or dropped off in person there.
All ballots are due to county elections offices' drop off locations or postmarked on or before Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Maryland changed by just one delegate from 2016 to 2020. The number of district delegates increased by one and the other two categories of pledged delegates stayed exactly the same as did the number of superdelegates in the Old Line state.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Maryland's 65 congressional district delegates are split across eight congressional districts and have a variation of just two delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Maryland Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 7 delegates*
CD2 - 8 delegates
CD3 - 8 delegates
CD4 - 9 delegates*
CD5 - 9 delegates*
CD6 - 7 delegates*
CD7 - 9 delegates*
CD8 - 8 delegates
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of the 65 district delegates in Maryland will occur on the June 2 presidential primary ballot. That process has not changed although the date of the contest has. PLEO and then at-large delegates will be selected on June 20 by the state central committee. It is unclear as of this writing whether that meeting will be in-person or virtual.
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Maryland Democrats had planned to hold a post-primary state central committee meeting on May 30 to select PLEO and then at-large delegates. District delegates will continue to be elected on the primary ballot, but on June 2 instead of April 28.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in late-June when the Maryland statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 119 [21 at-large, 10 PLEOs, 65 congressional district, 23 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
[Addendum to plan]
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Unlike the past couple of cycles, Maryland lawmakers made no effort to uproot the presidential primary in the Old Line state from its position on the primary calendar. The late April spot alongside neighboring states Delaware and Pennsylvania survived into the 2020 cycle. As the nomination process formally began and the coronavirus pandemic became a more serious threat to the normal administration of the election, changes were made. In mid-March, Governor Larry Hogan (R) initially shifted the April 28 primary back five weeks to June 2. But then later in March, the Maryland State Board of Elections signaled an all-mail primary before retreating from that stance a bit in April. The Board voted then to hold a predominantly mail-in primary while still allowing for a reduced number of election day voting sites for those unable to vote by mail. Each county will have at least one election day voting location but no more than four.
All eligible Maryland voters will receive a ballot -- not an application for an absentee ballot as in most other states that have made similar changes -- with prepaid postage. Those ballots can then be mailed back to county elections offices or dropped off in person there.
All ballots are due to county elections offices' drop off locations or postmarked on or before Tuesday, June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Maryland changed by just one delegate from 2016 to 2020. The number of district delegates increased by one and the other two categories of pledged delegates stayed exactly the same as did the number of superdelegates in the Old Line state.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Maryland's 65 congressional district delegates are split across eight congressional districts and have a variation of just two delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Maryland Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 7 delegates*
CD2 - 8 delegates
CD3 - 8 delegates
CD4 - 9 delegates*
CD5 - 9 delegates*
CD6 - 7 delegates*
CD7 - 9 delegates*
CD8 - 8 delegates
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The selection of the 65 district delegates in Maryland will occur on the June 2 presidential primary ballot. That process has not changed although the date of the contest has. PLEO and then at-large delegates will be selected on June 20 by the state central committee. It is unclear as of this writing whether that meeting will be in-person or virtual.
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Maryland Democrats had planned to hold a post-primary state central committee meeting on May 30 to select PLEO and then at-large delegates. District delegates will continue to be elected on the primary ballot, but on June 2 instead of April 28.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in late-June when the Maryland statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: INDIANA
INDIANA
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[May 5 originally]
Number of delegates: 89 [18 at-large, 9 PLEOs, 55 congressional district, 7 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Very little changed for Indiana Democrats before the coronavirus pandemic reared its head in the 2020 presidential nomination process. There was no effort to shift the presidential primary from its traditional early May position; a position the state has occupied throughout the post-reform era.
But the pandemic did affect the nature of the state-level process mid-primary season in 2020. On March 20, Indiana Governor Holcomb (R) pushed the May 5 primary back to June 2 via executive order. Less than a week later, the State Elections Commission voted to waive the excuse requirement to vote absentee (by mail), and on May 11 voted again to move to a primarily vote-by-mail election. In-person early voting will be opened to voters from May 26-June 1, but at fewer locations than during a normal election. Additionally, Indiana voters will have until May 21 to request an absentee ballot. Unlike other states, Indiana is not mailing out absentee applications or ballots. The onus is on the voter to request the application, fill it out, return that and have it approved before receiving a ballot that will also have to be mailed back in.
All ballots are due to county elections offices by noon on Tuesday, June 2. That is received and not postmarked by June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Indiana changed by just three delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of district delegates decreased by one and the other two categories of pledged delegates stayed exactly the same. And the number of superdelegates shrunk by two in the Hoosier state.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Indiana's 55 congressional district delegates are split across nine congressional districts and have a variation of three delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Indiana Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 8 delegates
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 5 delegates*
CD4 - 5 delegates*
CD5 - 8 delegates
CD6 - 5 delegates*
CD7 - 8 delegates
CD8 - 5 delegates*
CD9 - 6 delegates
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The 55 district delegates in Indiana will now be virtually selected by state convention delegates elected on the June 2 primary ballot. Online voting will take place from June 13-17. Ballots will be sorted based on both congressional district and presidential preference. Only Joe Biden-aligned state convention delegates from a particular district, for example, will select the district delegates allocated to Biden in the June 2 primary.
Those district delegate votes will be tabulated on June 18 and then all of the district delegates will convene on June 19 and select the PLEO and then at-large delegates to the national convention.
It is not specified in the May 2 addendum to the Indiana Democratic Party delegate selection plan whether that national convention delegation meeting -- the one where statewide delegates are selected -- will be held virtually or in person.
It should additionally be noted that the Indiana Democratic Party has also filed a waiver request with the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee to delay the selection process by about a month. Under that proposed revision, ballots to elect district delegates would be mailed to state convention delegates on June 22. Those state convention delegates would then have until July 10 to return those ballots. Results would then be tabulated from July 13-15 and a national convention delegation meeting would then occur on July 16 where a quorum of district delegates would select PLEO and then at-large delegates. Under the waiver, Indiana Democrats would have a bit more time to conduct and finalize the delegate selection process.
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Indiana Democrats had planned to hold post-primary state convention on June 13 at which district delegates would have been selected. A quorum of those district delegates to the national convention would then have selected PLEO and at-large delegates.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the Indiana statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
Election type: primary
Date: June 2
[May 5 originally]
Number of delegates: 89 [18 at-large, 9 PLEOs, 55 congressional district, 7 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
Very little changed for Indiana Democrats before the coronavirus pandemic reared its head in the 2020 presidential nomination process. There was no effort to shift the presidential primary from its traditional early May position; a position the state has occupied throughout the post-reform era.
But the pandemic did affect the nature of the state-level process mid-primary season in 2020. On March 20, Indiana Governor Holcomb (R) pushed the May 5 primary back to June 2 via executive order. Less than a week later, the State Elections Commission voted to waive the excuse requirement to vote absentee (by mail), and on May 11 voted again to move to a primarily vote-by-mail election. In-person early voting will be opened to voters from May 26-June 1, but at fewer locations than during a normal election. Additionally, Indiana voters will have until May 21 to request an absentee ballot. Unlike other states, Indiana is not mailing out absentee applications or ballots. The onus is on the voter to request the application, fill it out, return that and have it approved before receiving a ballot that will also have to be mailed back in.
All ballots are due to county elections offices by noon on Tuesday, June 2. That is received and not postmarked by June 2.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Indiana changed by just three delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of district delegates decreased by one and the other two categories of pledged delegates stayed exactly the same. And the number of superdelegates shrunk by two in the Hoosier state.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Indiana's 55 congressional district delegates are split across nine congressional districts and have a variation of three delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Indiana Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 8 delegates
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 5 delegates*
CD4 - 5 delegates*
CD5 - 8 delegates
CD6 - 5 delegates*
CD7 - 8 delegates
CD8 - 5 delegates*
CD9 - 6 delegates
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The 55 district delegates in Indiana will now be virtually selected by state convention delegates elected on the June 2 primary ballot. Online voting will take place from June 13-17. Ballots will be sorted based on both congressional district and presidential preference. Only Joe Biden-aligned state convention delegates from a particular district, for example, will select the district delegates allocated to Biden in the June 2 primary.
Those district delegate votes will be tabulated on June 18 and then all of the district delegates will convene on June 19 and select the PLEO and then at-large delegates to the national convention.
It is not specified in the May 2 addendum to the Indiana Democratic Party delegate selection plan whether that national convention delegation meeting -- the one where statewide delegates are selected -- will be held virtually or in person.
It should additionally be noted that the Indiana Democratic Party has also filed a waiver request with the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee to delay the selection process by about a month. Under that proposed revision, ballots to elect district delegates would be mailed to state convention delegates on June 22. Those state convention delegates would then have until July 10 to return those ballots. Results would then be tabulated from July 13-15 and a national convention delegation meeting would then occur on July 16 where a quorum of district delegates would select PLEO and then at-large delegates. Under the waiver, Indiana Democrats would have a bit more time to conduct and finalize the delegate selection process.
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Indiana Democrats had planned to hold post-primary state convention on June 13 at which district delegates would have been selected. A quorum of those district delegates to the national convention would then have selected PLEO and at-large delegates.]
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-June when the Indiana statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early June primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.
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