LOUISIANA
Election type: primary
Date: July 11
[April 4 originally and then June 20]
Number of delegates: 60 [12 at-large, 7 PLEOs, 35 congressional district, 6 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, post-coronavirus: March | April]
--
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.
2019 was a mostly quiet year for primary movement compared to some recent cycles, but Louisiana was one of the few states that shifted to a different date for 2020. The change to a later date in 2020 -- the first Saturday in April -- was less about the presidential primary and more about the timing of local elections. But it did have the added benefit to Pelican state Democrats of adding bonus delegates to their total.
However, that was all before the coronavirus. After the pandemic began to spread, Louisiana became the first state to make a change, shifting the April 4 primary back to June 20. Louisiana was the first was not the last state to move, and in Louisiana's case, move again. The mid-March decision to push the primary to June did not hold very long as the coronavirus extended its reach and peak well into April. It was then -- in mid-April when the coronavirus was at its worst in New Orleans -- that the decision came down from Governor John Bel Edwards (D), moving the primary back another three weeks to July 11.
But while the change bought election administrators some additional time to get out of the shadow of the pandemic, only a slight change was made to absentee vote-by-mail in the Pelican state. Typically, an excuse is required in order to receive an absentee ballot and that did not change in 2020. However, several coronavirus-related excuses were added to the list gradually expanding who and how many Louisianans will qualify for a vote-by-mail ballot. That diverges from how most later primary states that have moved (and even those who have not) have reacted in the wake of the coronavirus. Most states have mailed either absentee applications or ballots to voters, but Louisiana has opted not to. But then again, most states did not move to dates as late as the July date on which the Louisiana primary settled.
All absentee ballots are due to county elections offices on or before 4:30pm on Friday, July 10 for most voters. Military and overseas officials have until 8pm on Saturday, July 11 to have their absentee ballots into county registrars.
Overall, the Democratic delegation from Louisiana changed by three delegates from 2016 to 2020. The number of district delegates rose by two and one additional at-large delegate was tacked on as well. Those increases were a direct result of the timing bonus the state party gained from the primary moving to April from early March. PLEO delegates and superdelegates remain the same in 2020 as they did in 2016.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specific 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)
Louisiana's 35 congressional district delegates are split across six congressional districts and have a variation of five delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Pelican state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential and 2019 gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 4 delegates
CD2 - 9 delegates*
CD3 - 5 delegates*
CD4 - 6 delegates
CD5 - 6 delegates
CD6 - 5 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
Under the originally approved Louisiana Democratic Party delegate selection plan, the 35 district delegates were to have been selected in a vote-by-mail system throughout April open to all registered Democrats who wanted to apply with the party. That system was unique among states before the coronavirus, but is less so after it. That system remains and was pushed back, but will now be a pre-primary exercise to slate district delegate candidates to be chosen from to fill delegate slots allocated in the July 11 primary. District delegate ballots were mailed out by the state party on April 29 and due back, postmarked by May 18.
Statewide delegates were to have been selected by the State Central Committee at a May 9 meeting, but that, too, became a casualty of the coronavirus. Louisiana Democrats opted to lean on a vote-by-mail system for selecting PLEO and then at-large delegates will continue to be chosen by the State Central Committee, but members will do so via a vote-by-mail system in which ballots were sent out on May 22 and will be due to the party, postmarked by June 8. Again, as with the district delegate selection process, the selection of statewide delegates will take place before the primary, slating delegate candidates to be chosen from after the primary.
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. Under a 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. Louisiana Democrats will select slates of delegate candidates in pre-primary votes-by-mail. Delegates slots allocated to the candidates will be filled from those slates once the results are in from the July 11 primary, negating much of the normal reallocation rules.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: NEW JERSEY
NEW JERSEY
Election type: primary
Date: July 7
[June 2 originally]
Number of delegates: 146 [28 at-large, 14 PLEOs, 84 congressional district, 20 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the (paired) legislative district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
[Timeline of changes, post-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.
Rarely in the post-reform era has the consolidated New Jersey primary been uprooted from its traditional early June position on the presidential primary calendar and moved to another spot. That was no different from 2016-2019. But as has been the case in a number of other states, the coronavirus served as an impetus for electoral change in 2020 in the Garden state as well.
Governor Phil Murphy (D) issued an executive order in early April to shift the primary 35 days deeper into the calendar and beyond the DNC rules-defined deadline to hold delegate selection events. Along with the move from June 2 to July 7, the governor also bought the state more time to push the state toward a predominantly vote-by-mail election. While there will be a reduced number of polling places on primary day, all registered voters in New Jersey will receive an absentee vote-by-mail ballot with return postage included. That is a route taken most clearly by Maryland, but all counties in Montana also opted to send ballots -- not applications for absentee ballots -- to eligible voters. New Jersey joins that group.
All absentee ballots are due to county elections offices postmarked on or before Tuesday, July 7. If a ballot meets that criterion, then it will be accepted until July 14.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in New Jersey changed by five delegates from 2016 to 2020. All three pledged categories of delegates retained their same numbers from four years ago while all the gains in the delegation came from the additional of five superdelegates to the delegation.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specific 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 Jersey's 84 congressional district delegates are split across 20 paired state legislative districts and have a variation of three delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Garden state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 3 delegates*
CD2 - 3 delegates*
CD3 - 4 delegates
CD4 - 4 delegates
CD5 - 3 delegates*
CD6 - 3 delegates*
CD7 - 4 delegates
CD8 - 5 delegates*
CD9 - 4 delegates
CD10 - 3 delegates*
CD11 - 3 delegates*
CD12 - 4 delegates
CD13 - 4 delegates
CD14 - 3 delegates*
CD15 - 6 delegates
CD16 - 6 delegates
CD17 - 5 delegates*
CD18 - 6 delegates
CD19 - 6 delegates
CD20 - 5 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 coronavirus pushed the presidential primary in the Garden state back by five weeks and the timeline of the delegate selection process New Jersey Democrats are using basically mimics that change. The 84 district delegates in the New Jersey are directly elected on the primary ballot on July 7, listed alongside the presidential candidate to whom they are pledged. That selection moved when the primary moved. And so did the selection of statewide delegates. The New Jersey Democratic State Committee will choose PLEO and then at-large delegates in a post-primary meeting that will fall on July 18.
[Under the originally approved and compliant delegate selection plan, New Jersey Democrats would still have directly elected their district delegates on the primary ballot, but on June 2. Likewise, the PLEO and at-large delegates would have been chosen by a post-primary state committee meeting that was planned for June 13.]
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 early July when the New Jersey statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the mid-July 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: July 7
[June 2 originally]
Number of delegates: 146 [28 at-large, 14 PLEOs, 84 congressional district, 20 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the (paired) legislative district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (pre-coronavirus)
[Timeline of changes, post-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.
Rarely in the post-reform era has the consolidated New Jersey primary been uprooted from its traditional early June position on the presidential primary calendar and moved to another spot. That was no different from 2016-2019. But as has been the case in a number of other states, the coronavirus served as an impetus for electoral change in 2020 in the Garden state as well.
Governor Phil Murphy (D) issued an executive order in early April to shift the primary 35 days deeper into the calendar and beyond the DNC rules-defined deadline to hold delegate selection events. Along with the move from June 2 to July 7, the governor also bought the state more time to push the state toward a predominantly vote-by-mail election. While there will be a reduced number of polling places on primary day, all registered voters in New Jersey will receive an absentee vote-by-mail ballot with return postage included. That is a route taken most clearly by Maryland, but all counties in Montana also opted to send ballots -- not applications for absentee ballots -- to eligible voters. New Jersey joins that group.
All absentee ballots are due to county elections offices postmarked on or before Tuesday, July 7. If a ballot meets that criterion, then it will be accepted until July 14.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in New Jersey changed by five delegates from 2016 to 2020. All three pledged categories of delegates retained their same numbers from four years ago while all the gains in the delegation came from the additional of five superdelegates to the delegation.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specific 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 Jersey's 84 congressional district delegates are split across 20 paired state legislative districts and have a variation of three delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Garden state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 3 delegates*
CD2 - 3 delegates*
CD3 - 4 delegates
CD4 - 4 delegates
CD5 - 3 delegates*
CD6 - 3 delegates*
CD7 - 4 delegates
CD8 - 5 delegates*
CD9 - 4 delegates
CD10 - 3 delegates*
CD11 - 3 delegates*
CD12 - 4 delegates
CD13 - 4 delegates
CD14 - 3 delegates*
CD15 - 6 delegates
CD16 - 6 delegates
CD17 - 5 delegates*
CD18 - 6 delegates
CD19 - 6 delegates
CD20 - 5 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 coronavirus pushed the presidential primary in the Garden state back by five weeks and the timeline of the delegate selection process New Jersey Democrats are using basically mimics that change. The 84 district delegates in the New Jersey are directly elected on the primary ballot on July 7, listed alongside the presidential candidate to whom they are pledged. That selection moved when the primary moved. And so did the selection of statewide delegates. The New Jersey Democratic State Committee will choose PLEO and then at-large delegates in a post-primary meeting that will fall on July 18.
[Under the originally approved and compliant delegate selection plan, New Jersey Democrats would still have directly elected their district delegates on the primary ballot, but on June 2. Likewise, the PLEO and at-large delegates would have been chosen by a post-primary state committee meeting that was planned for June 13.]
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 early July when the New Jersey statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the mid-July 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.
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: DELAWARE
DELAWARE
Election type: primary
Date: July 7
[April 28 originally and then June 2]
Number of delegates: 32 [5 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 14 congressional district, 11 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the subdivision level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (mid-coronavirus)
[Updated plan after primary move to July 7]
--
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.
Little changed in the delegate selection process for Delaware Democrats from 2016 until the beginning of 2020. There was an effort to consolidate all of the primaries in a presidential election year for the last Tuesday in April slot that the Delaware presidential primary has occupied since the 2012 cycle. But the non-presidential primary stayed in September and the presidential primary remained in April.
And that was the case until the coronavirus pandemic and its attendant impact on the electoral process happened. That triggered not one, but two presidential primary moves. First, Delaware Governor John Carney (D) in late March pushed the primary back to June 2. However, that date proved difficult not only because the virus and its potential for spread during in-person voting even in June, but because of the tiny window to jumpstart no-excuse absentee voting in a state that did not have that infrastructure in place.
That led to a subsequent change in the Delaware election calendar in early May. Governor Carney moved the Delaware presidential primary back to July 7 (a move for which Delaware Democrats received a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee waiver because the date falls after June 9), and also called for all eligible Delaware voters to be mailed an absentee ballot application. These changes conform with what a number of other states -- both Democratic and Republican-controlled -- that have had to make changes in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak have done.
All absentee ballots are due to county elections offices on before Tuesday, July 7. That is received and not postmarked by 8pm on June 7.
Overall, the Democratic delegation from Delaware changed by just two delegates from 2016 to 2020. All of the pledged delegate categories remained the same and First state Democrats added two superdelegates in that time.
[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)
Delaware's 14 congressional district delegates are split across four subdivision districts -- Wilmington city and three counties -- 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 First state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
Wilmington city - 2 delegates
New Castle County - 8 delegates
Kent County - 2 delegates
Sussex County - 2 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 Delaware's 21 pledged delegates go through a multi-tiered process starting with "representative district-level" caucuses (RDLC). Those events were planned throughout March (and before April 28), but were interrupted by the spread of the coronavirus and subsequent lockdowns. That meant that some of those caucuses were completed in-person while alternate plans had to be made for the remaining caucuses. All Democrats registered by January 1, 2020 were eligible to participate in the RDLCs and ballots were made available for download on April 15. Participants could mail those ballots postmarked by May 15 or email them (or take advantage of the drive-up option if given the okay) by May 18.
Those RDLCs elect delegates to the post-primary Delaware Delegate Selection Caucus (DDSC), the voting window of which is tentatively scheduled fall on July 9-13. Delegates to the DDSC will elect the 14 subdivision (district) delegates in an online vote. Finally, the national convention district delegates will then meet in the Delaware Democratic Delegate Selection Convention proposed for July 16. A quorum of those 14 delegates will select the 2 PLEO and then 5 at-large delegates to the national convention.
[The originally approved Delaware delegate selection plan called for the RDLCs to occur before April 28 as mentioned above, and for the district and statewide delegate selections to both occur on May 9 after the April 28 primary. Those in-person May 9 DDSCs would have chosen the district delegates, a quorum of which would thereafter have picked the PLEO and then at-large delegates to the national convention.]
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 Delaware statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early July 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: July 7
[April 28 originally and then June 2]
Number of delegates: 32 [5 at-large, 2 PLEOs, 14 congressional district, 11 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the subdivision level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (mid-coronavirus)
[Updated plan after primary move to July 7]
--
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.
Little changed in the delegate selection process for Delaware Democrats from 2016 until the beginning of 2020. There was an effort to consolidate all of the primaries in a presidential election year for the last Tuesday in April slot that the Delaware presidential primary has occupied since the 2012 cycle. But the non-presidential primary stayed in September and the presidential primary remained in April.
And that was the case until the coronavirus pandemic and its attendant impact on the electoral process happened. That triggered not one, but two presidential primary moves. First, Delaware Governor John Carney (D) in late March pushed the primary back to June 2. However, that date proved difficult not only because the virus and its potential for spread during in-person voting even in June, but because of the tiny window to jumpstart no-excuse absentee voting in a state that did not have that infrastructure in place.
That led to a subsequent change in the Delaware election calendar in early May. Governor Carney moved the Delaware presidential primary back to July 7 (a move for which Delaware Democrats received a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee waiver because the date falls after June 9), and also called for all eligible Delaware voters to be mailed an absentee ballot application. These changes conform with what a number of other states -- both Democratic and Republican-controlled -- that have had to make changes in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak have done.
All absentee ballots are due to county elections offices on before Tuesday, July 7. That is received and not postmarked by 8pm on June 7.
[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)
Delaware's 14 congressional district delegates are split across four subdivision districts -- Wilmington city and three counties -- 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 First state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
Wilmington city - 2 delegates
New Castle County - 8 delegates
Kent County - 2 delegates
Sussex County - 2 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 Delaware's 21 pledged delegates go through a multi-tiered process starting with "representative district-level" caucuses (RDLC). Those events were planned throughout March (and before April 28), but were interrupted by the spread of the coronavirus and subsequent lockdowns. That meant that some of those caucuses were completed in-person while alternate plans had to be made for the remaining caucuses. All Democrats registered by January 1, 2020 were eligible to participate in the RDLCs and ballots were made available for download on April 15. Participants could mail those ballots postmarked by May 15 or email them (or take advantage of the drive-up option if given the okay) by May 18.
Those RDLCs elect delegates to the post-primary Delaware Delegate Selection Caucus (DDSC), the voting window of which is tentatively scheduled fall on July 9-13. Delegates to the DDSC will elect the 14 subdivision (district) delegates in an online vote. Finally, the national convention district delegates will then meet in the Delaware Democratic Delegate Selection Convention proposed for July 16. A quorum of those 14 delegates will select the 2 PLEO and then 5 at-large delegates to the national convention.
[The originally approved Delaware delegate selection plan called for the RDLCs to occur before April 28 as mentioned above, and for the district and statewide delegate selections to both occur on May 9 after the April 28 primary. Those in-person May 9 DDSCs would have chosen the district delegates, a quorum of which would thereafter have picked the PLEO and then at-large delegates to the national convention.]
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 Delaware statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the early July 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, June 1, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: NEW YORK
NEW YORK
Election type: primary
Date: June 23
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 324 [61 at-large, 29 PLEOs, 184 congressional district, 50 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-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.
New York Democrats saw a number of changes both before and after the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the Empire state. In the time since 2016 and before the calendar flipped to 2020, the New York state legislature in 2019 shifted the primary back a week from the mid-April position it held alone in 2016 to the final Tuesday in April alongside a group of five other neighboring states.
But after the coronavirus hit in earnest in March 2020 and hit especially hard in New York state, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) first pushed the primary back to June 23 and then issued an executive order requiring county elections officials to mail absentee ballot applications (with postage-paid return) to all eligible New York voters. However, days later, acting on the new powers granted it under a new provision in a budget bill signed into law, the New York State Board of Elections opted to cancel the June 23 presidential primary. [For more on the further empowerment of the Board of Elections in this scenario, see this post on the maneuvering after the cancelation.] That move was challenged in federal court. And first the district court reversed the cancelation and then the court of appeals upheld that decision, ushering back in the June 23 presidential primary.
The state did not appeal that court of appeals decision, cementing the presidential primary on June 23. Voters will now have until June 16 -- a week before the the primary -- to have their ballot requests in to county elections offices in order to receive their ballot in time for the election.
All ballots are then due to county elections offices postmarked on or before Monday, June 22, or delivered in person by election day on June 23.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in New York changed by 29 delegates from 2016 to 2020. Since the last Democratic nomination four years ago, Democrats in the Empire state added 21 district delegates, seven at-large delegates and two superdelegates. The only category of delegates to shrink since 2016 was the group of PLEO delegates that decreased by one delegate. Most of the gains came from New York having rejoined the Acela primary group of states -- originally in late April -- and tacking on a 15 percent clustering bonus from the DNC. New York was a part of the group in 2012, but went a week earlier than the rest 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)
New York's 184 congressional district delegates are split across 27 congressional districts and have a variation of just two delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Empire state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 6 delegates
CD2 - 6 delegates
CD3 - 7 delegates*
CD4 - 7 delegates*
CD5 - 8 delegates
CD6 - 6 delegates
CD7 - 7 delegates*
CD8 - 8 delegates
CD9 - 8 delegates
CD10 - 7 delegates*
CD11 - 6 delegates
CD12 - 8 delegates
CD13 - 8 delegates
CD14 - 6 delegates
CD15 - 7 delegates*
CD16 - 8 delegates
CD17 - 7 delegates*
CD18 - 6 delegates
CD19 - 6 delegates
CD20 - 7 delegates*
CD21 - 6 delegates
CD22 - 6 delegates
CD23 - 6 delegates
CD24 - 7 delegates*
CD25 - 7 delegates*
CD26 - 7 delegates*
CD27 - 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 184 district delegates will still be directly elected on the New York Democratic presidential primary ballot, but now that primary will take place on June 23. Similarly, the state convention -- some time in July -- will continue to be the body that selects both the PLEO and then at-large delegates. But it is noteworthy that the New York Democratic Party state convention is a state convention in name only, at least as compared to how most other states conduct state conventions. The typical state convention is comprised of a group of delegates who are selected at more local caucuses or conventions during primary season. The New York Democratic state convention is alternatively just the state central committee. In essence, then, it is a meeting of the committee rather than a convention of delegates. However, each campaign will have at least one member representing them on the nominating committee at the convention.
[Under the originally approved and compliant delegate selection plan, New York Democrats would still have directly elected their district delegates on the primary ballot. That remains the case, but that would have taken place on April 28, before the primary moved back to June. Likewise, the PLEO and at-large delegates would have been chosen at the state convention that was planned for May 12.]
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 July when the New York statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the late 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 23
[April 28 originally]
Number of delegates: 324 [61 at-large, 29 PLEOs, 184 congressional district, 50 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-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.
New York Democrats saw a number of changes both before and after the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the Empire state. In the time since 2016 and before the calendar flipped to 2020, the New York state legislature in 2019 shifted the primary back a week from the mid-April position it held alone in 2016 to the final Tuesday in April alongside a group of five other neighboring states.
But after the coronavirus hit in earnest in March 2020 and hit especially hard in New York state, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) first pushed the primary back to June 23 and then issued an executive order requiring county elections officials to mail absentee ballot applications (with postage-paid return) to all eligible New York voters. However, days later, acting on the new powers granted it under a new provision in a budget bill signed into law, the New York State Board of Elections opted to cancel the June 23 presidential primary. [For more on the further empowerment of the Board of Elections in this scenario, see this post on the maneuvering after the cancelation.] That move was challenged in federal court. And first the district court reversed the cancelation and then the court of appeals upheld that decision, ushering back in the June 23 presidential primary.
The state did not appeal that court of appeals decision, cementing the presidential primary on June 23. Voters will now have until June 16 -- a week before the the primary -- to have their ballot requests in to county elections offices in order to receive their ballot in time for the election.
All ballots are then due to county elections offices postmarked on or before Monday, June 22, or delivered in person by election day on June 23.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in New York changed by 29 delegates from 2016 to 2020. Since the last Democratic nomination four years ago, Democrats in the Empire state added 21 district delegates, seven at-large delegates and two superdelegates. The only category of delegates to shrink since 2016 was the group of PLEO delegates that decreased by one delegate. Most of the gains came from New York having rejoined the Acela primary group of states -- originally in late April -- and tacking on a 15 percent clustering bonus from the DNC. New York was a part of the group in 2012, but went a week earlier than the rest 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)
New York's 184 congressional district delegates are split across 27 congressional districts and have a variation of just two delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Empire state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 6 delegates
CD2 - 6 delegates
CD3 - 7 delegates*
CD4 - 7 delegates*
CD5 - 8 delegates
CD6 - 6 delegates
CD7 - 7 delegates*
CD8 - 8 delegates
CD9 - 8 delegates
CD10 - 7 delegates*
CD11 - 6 delegates
CD12 - 8 delegates
CD13 - 8 delegates
CD14 - 6 delegates
CD15 - 7 delegates*
CD16 - 8 delegates
CD17 - 7 delegates*
CD18 - 6 delegates
CD19 - 6 delegates
CD20 - 7 delegates*
CD21 - 6 delegates
CD22 - 6 delegates
CD23 - 6 delegates
CD24 - 7 delegates*
CD25 - 7 delegates*
CD26 - 7 delegates*
CD27 - 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 184 district delegates will still be directly elected on the New York Democratic presidential primary ballot, but now that primary will take place on June 23. Similarly, the state convention -- some time in July -- will continue to be the body that selects both the PLEO and then at-large delegates. But it is noteworthy that the New York Democratic Party state convention is a state convention in name only, at least as compared to how most other states conduct state conventions. The typical state convention is comprised of a group of delegates who are selected at more local caucuses or conventions during primary season. The New York Democratic state convention is alternatively just the state central committee. In essence, then, it is a meeting of the committee rather than a convention of delegates. However, each campaign will have at least one member representing them on the nominating committee at the convention.
[Under the originally approved and compliant delegate selection plan, New York Democrats would still have directly elected their district delegates on the primary ballot. That remains the case, but that would have taken place on April 28, before the primary moved back to June. Likewise, the PLEO and at-large delegates would have been chosen at the state convention that was planned for May 12.]
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 July when the New York statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the late 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 31, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: KENTUCKY
KENTUCKY
Election type: primary
Date: June 23
[May 19 originally]
Number of delegates: 60 [12 at-large, 6 PLEOs, 36 congressional district, 6 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)
[Summary of changes, post-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.
It was a quiet time in Kentucky after 2016, at least so far as the presidential primary and other delegate selection changes (especially on the Democratic side) were concerned. There was no effort to move or break up the consolidated primary scheduled for mid-May during the period from late 2016 through 2019.
But once the coronavirus pandemic came on the scene, Kentucky, like other states, changed the plans that had been laid out well in advance. On the state government level, Secretary of State Michael Adams (R) moved the primary from the May position it has been in since the 1992 cycle to June 23. And in a deal struck with Governor Andy Beshear (D), Adams also extended absentee voting to all registered Kentuckians. Postcards indicating the new voting option were mailed to all voters and an online application was created to allow all voters to request an absentee ballot. This is similar to the changes made in neighboring Ohio. Information about the change in voting was distributed, but not either absentee voting applications nor ballots were mailed directly to voters.
All ballots are due to county elections offices on or before 6pm on Tuesday, June 23.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Kentucky changed by just one delegate from 2016 to 2020. Over the last four years, only the district delegates decreased by one while the remaining two categories of pledged delegates and superdelegates stayed the same.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the Kentucky Democratic Party 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)
Kentucky's 36 congressional district delegates are split across 6 congressional districts and have a fairly wide variation of seven delegates across districts based on the measure of Democratic strength the state party is using determined by the results of the 2016 presidential and 2019 gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 4 delegates
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 10 delegates
CD4 - 6 delegates
CD5 - 3 delegates*
CD6 - 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
As it has elsewhere, the outbreak of the coronavirus has disrupted the delegate selection process in Kentucky. County/legislative district caucuses have been eliminated under the new plan and all registered Kentucky Democrats can remotely participate in the selection of district delegates. Any Kentucky Democrat can apply with the state party by June 6 to participate via Google Forms ballot in the pre-primary selection of district delegates that takes place from June 7-13. As this is a pre-primary election, delegate slates will be selected for participating candidates and delegate slots allocated on primary election day will be filled from those slates.
Both PLEO and then at-large delegates will be selected by the State Executive Committee on June 27 (if the results of the June 23 primary have been certified by that time).
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Kentucky Democrats had planned to hold post-primary county/legislative district caucuses on May 30 to select delegates to the state convention on June 6. State convention delegates broken into congressional districts were to have chosen district delegates there and the full convention would have selected the PLEO delegates. Following the conclusion of the June 6 state convention, the Kentucky Democratic Party State Executive Committee was to have selected the at-large delegates to go to the national convention from the commonwealth.]
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 Georgia statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the late 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 23
[May 19 originally]
Number of delegates: 60 [12 at-large, 6 PLEOs, 36 congressional district, 6 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)
[Summary of changes, post-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.
It was a quiet time in Kentucky after 2016, at least so far as the presidential primary and other delegate selection changes (especially on the Democratic side) were concerned. There was no effort to move or break up the consolidated primary scheduled for mid-May during the period from late 2016 through 2019.
But once the coronavirus pandemic came on the scene, Kentucky, like other states, changed the plans that had been laid out well in advance. On the state government level, Secretary of State Michael Adams (R) moved the primary from the May position it has been in since the 1992 cycle to June 23. And in a deal struck with Governor Andy Beshear (D), Adams also extended absentee voting to all registered Kentuckians. Postcards indicating the new voting option were mailed to all voters and an online application was created to allow all voters to request an absentee ballot. This is similar to the changes made in neighboring Ohio. Information about the change in voting was distributed, but not either absentee voting applications nor ballots were mailed directly to voters.
All ballots are due to county elections offices on or before 6pm on Tuesday, June 23.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Kentucky changed by just one delegate from 2016 to 2020. Over the last four years, only the district delegates decreased by one while the remaining two categories of pledged delegates and superdelegates stayed the same.
[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the Kentucky Democratic Party 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)
Kentucky's 36 congressional district delegates are split across 6 congressional districts and have a fairly wide variation of seven delegates across districts based on the measure of Democratic strength the state party is using determined by the results of the 2016 presidential and 2019 gubernatorial elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 4 delegates
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 10 delegates
CD4 - 6 delegates
CD5 - 3 delegates*
CD6 - 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
As it has elsewhere, the outbreak of the coronavirus has disrupted the delegate selection process in Kentucky. County/legislative district caucuses have been eliminated under the new plan and all registered Kentucky Democrats can remotely participate in the selection of district delegates. Any Kentucky Democrat can apply with the state party by June 6 to participate via Google Forms ballot in the pre-primary selection of district delegates that takes place from June 7-13. As this is a pre-primary election, delegate slates will be selected for participating candidates and delegate slots allocated on primary election day will be filled from those slates.
Both PLEO and then at-large delegates will be selected by the State Executive Committee on June 27 (if the results of the June 23 primary have been certified by that time).
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, Kentucky Democrats had planned to hold post-primary county/legislative district caucuses on May 30 to select delegates to the state convention on June 6. State convention delegates broken into congressional districts were to have chosen district delegates there and the full convention would have selected the PLEO delegates. Following the conclusion of the June 6 state convention, the Kentucky Democratic Party State Executive Committee was to have selected the at-large delegates to go to the national convention from the commonwealth.]
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 Georgia statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the late 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 30, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: WEST VIRGINIA
WEST VIRGINIA
Election type: primary
Date: June 9
[May 12 originally]
Number of delegates: 34 [6 at-large, 3 PLEOs, 19 congressional district, 6 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-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.
Other than Mountain state Republicans changing to a February convention for the 2008 cycle, West Virginia delegate allocation has happened in May since the 1988 cycle. That did not change in the lead up to 2020. However, there was a short-lived and unsuccessful effort in 2017 to move the West Virginia primary to the second Friday in February. That obviously would have conflicted with the national party rules on the timing of primaries and caucuses and died in committee.
However, there were changes to the ways in which West Virginia will conduct its 2020 primary triggered by the coronavirus. The initial response by Secretary of State Mac Warner (R) was to keep the primary on May 12 but work with county elections clerks to mail absentee vote-by-mail applications to all eligible West Virginia voters. But that was followed in quick succession at the beginning of April by an executive order from Governor Jim Justice (R) moving the primary back four weeks to June 9.
There will still be a ten day window for in-person early voting from May 27-June 6 and in-person election day voting remains an option as well. But the secretary of state is expecting record vote-by-mail numbers. Typically only 3 percent of West Virginians have voted in that manner in the past, but a little more than 20 percent had already requested ballots as of May 26. [UPDATE (6/9/20): As of election eve, 21.4 percent of registered voters in West Virginia had requested absentee ballots and 17.2 percent had cast them by June 8 according to the secretary of state in the Mountain state. Another 3 percent had voted during the early voting window.]
All vote-by-mail ballots are due to county elections offices postmarked on or before Tuesday, June 9.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in West Virginia changed by three delegates from 2016 to 2020. Among the categories of pledged delegates, the number of district delegates decreased by one while the totals of PLEO and at-large remained the same as they were four years ago. West Virginia Democrats also lost two superdelegates in that time.
[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)
West Virginia's 19 congressional district delegates are split across three congressional districts and have a variation of four delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Mountain state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 6 delegates
CD2 - 7 delegates*
CD3 - 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 selection of the 28 pledged delegates to the national convention in West Virginia will follow a similar trajectory to the plan laid out prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus. But the kick off event -- the county caucuses -- will be later and the whole process will contain more virtual elements than had been the true with the plan originally approved by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee in 2019. County conventions pushed back to May 16 will occur virtually and select delegates to the state convention. Once those wishing to participate file to do so via Google Forms (with the state party), the state party will electronically distribute ballots on May 13 to be completed by May 16.
Those delegates selected to attend the state convention will then be mailed or emailed ballots for remotely/virtually electing the 19 district delegates starting on May 25. Those ballots will be due to the West Virginia Democratic Party via email, mail or call by June 12.
A day later on June 13, the West Virginia Democratic Party State Executive Committee will convene virtually and select the PLEO and then at-large delegates to the national convention.
The dates of selection for all categories of pledged delegates fall on the same days they were before the coronavirus.
[The original timeline West Virginia Democrats planned to use in order to select delegates to the national convention began with pre-primary county caucuses on March 28. Participants at those county caucuses would have elected delegates to the post-primary state convention on June 12-13. District caucuses at the state convention would have selected the 19 district delegates. Then the PLEO and then at-large delegates would have been selected on June 13 by the West Virginia Democratic Party State Executive Committee.]
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 West Virginia statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the earlier 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 9
[May 12 originally]
Number of delegates: 34 [6 at-large, 3 PLEOs, 19 congressional district, 6 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-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.
Other than Mountain state Republicans changing to a February convention for the 2008 cycle, West Virginia delegate allocation has happened in May since the 1988 cycle. That did not change in the lead up to 2020. However, there was a short-lived and unsuccessful effort in 2017 to move the West Virginia primary to the second Friday in February. That obviously would have conflicted with the national party rules on the timing of primaries and caucuses and died in committee.
However, there were changes to the ways in which West Virginia will conduct its 2020 primary triggered by the coronavirus. The initial response by Secretary of State Mac Warner (R) was to keep the primary on May 12 but work with county elections clerks to mail absentee vote-by-mail applications to all eligible West Virginia voters. But that was followed in quick succession at the beginning of April by an executive order from Governor Jim Justice (R) moving the primary back four weeks to June 9.
There will still be a ten day window for in-person early voting from May 27-June 6 and in-person election day voting remains an option as well. But the secretary of state is expecting record vote-by-mail numbers. Typically only 3 percent of West Virginians have voted in that manner in the past, but a little more than 20 percent had already requested ballots as of May 26. [UPDATE (6/9/20): As of election eve, 21.4 percent of registered voters in West Virginia had requested absentee ballots and 17.2 percent had cast them by June 8 according to the secretary of state in the Mountain state. Another 3 percent had voted during the early voting window.]
All vote-by-mail ballots are due to county elections offices postmarked on or before Tuesday, June 9.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in West Virginia changed by three delegates from 2016 to 2020. Among the categories of pledged delegates, the number of district delegates decreased by one while the totals of PLEO and at-large remained the same as they were four years ago. West Virginia Democrats also lost two superdelegates in that time.
[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)
West Virginia's 19 congressional district delegates are split across three congressional districts and have a variation of four delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Mountain state Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 6 delegates
CD2 - 7 delegates*
CD3 - 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 selection of the 28 pledged delegates to the national convention in West Virginia will follow a similar trajectory to the plan laid out prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus. But the kick off event -- the county caucuses -- will be later and the whole process will contain more virtual elements than had been the true with the plan originally approved by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee in 2019. County conventions pushed back to May 16 will occur virtually and select delegates to the state convention. Once those wishing to participate file to do so via Google Forms (with the state party), the state party will electronically distribute ballots on May 13 to be completed by May 16.
Those delegates selected to attend the state convention will then be mailed or emailed ballots for remotely/virtually electing the 19 district delegates starting on May 25. Those ballots will be due to the West Virginia Democratic Party via email, mail or call by June 12.
A day later on June 13, the West Virginia Democratic Party State Executive Committee will convene virtually and select the PLEO and then at-large delegates to the national convention.
The dates of selection for all categories of pledged delegates fall on the same days they were before the coronavirus.
[The original timeline West Virginia Democrats planned to use in order to select delegates to the national convention began with pre-primary county caucuses on March 28. Participants at those county caucuses would have elected delegates to the post-primary state convention on June 12-13. District caucuses at the state convention would have selected the 19 district delegates. Then the PLEO and then at-large delegates would have been selected on June 13 by the West Virginia Democratic Party State Executive Committee.]
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 West Virginia statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the earlier 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 29, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: GEORGIA
GEORGIA
Election type: primary
Date: June 9
[March 24 originally and then May 19]
Number of delegates: 119 [23 at-large, 14 PLEOs, 68 congressional district, 14 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-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.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) nudged the presidential primary in the Peach state away from Super Tuesday for the first time since 1992 and the first time later than the first couple of weeks of March since 1976. The impetus behind the move to March 24 in 2019 was to accommodate Georgia Republicans in their delegate selection process. It allowed the GA GOP to allocate delegates in a more winner-take-all manner.
But those changes happened before 2020 and before the coronavirus pandemic intervened. That disrupted the plans for a March 24 primary since that fell at a point on the calendar when statewide lockdowns were beginning. That initially led Secretary Raffensperger to postpone the presidential primary, consolidating it with the primaries for state and local offices on May 19. Toward the end of March, Raffensperger then announced that all eligible Georgia voters would be mailed an absentee vote-by-mail request form for the May 19 primary.
However, Republicans less than happy about the mailed absentee applications and the lack of legislative input on the plan began calling for an even later primary date. Around that same time, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) extended the state of emergency in the Peach state to May 13, cutting into the early voting period for the May 19 primary. That led Raffensperger to move the primary back another three weeks to June 9. Absentee ballots requested before the second primary date change -- those with the May 19 date on them -- will still be accepted, and voters can still request absentee ballots up until election day on June 9.
All ballots are due to county elections offices on or before Tuesday, June 9.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Georgia changed by four delegates from 2016 to 2020. Each of the categories of delegates -- district, at-large, PLEO and superdelegate -- increased by one over the last four years.
[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)
Georgia's 68 congressional district delegates are split across 14 congressional districts and have a variation of four delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Georgia Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 5 delegates*
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 4 delegates
CD4 - 7 delegates*
CD5 - 7 delegates*
CD6 - 5 delegates*
CD7 - 5 delegates*
CD8 - 4 delegates
CD9 - 4 delegates
CD10 - 4 delegates
CD11 - 5 delegates*
CD12 - 4 delegates
CD13 - 6 delegates
CD14 - 3 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 68 district delegates in Georgia occurred remotely in a pre-primary vote on May 23 via Google Forms Ballots and call-in voting. As the vote happened before the primary, slates for active candidates were selected and delegate slots will be filled according to the results within each of the thirteen congressional districts. The credentialling for that vote took place from April 13-May 8.
PLEO delegates will be remotely selected on June 20 -- also via Google Forms Ballot -- by the district delegates selected on May 23.
Finally, the at-large delegates will also be selected on June 20 by the state central committee. That selection process will happen virtually via Google Forms Ballot.
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit and when there was going to be a March 24 primary, Georgia Democrats had planned to hold post-primary congressional district caucuses on April 11 to select district delegates. Those district-level delegates to the national convention were to then have selected PLEO on April 25. Finally, the at-large delegates were to have been selected by the Georgia Democratic state central committee on May 16. All of those dates would have fallen before the May 19 primary much less the new date of the contest, June 9.]
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 Georgia statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the mid-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 9
[March 24 originally and then May 19]
Number of delegates: 119 [23 at-large, 14 PLEOs, 68 congressional district, 14 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-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.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) nudged the presidential primary in the Peach state away from Super Tuesday for the first time since 1992 and the first time later than the first couple of weeks of March since 1976. The impetus behind the move to March 24 in 2019 was to accommodate Georgia Republicans in their delegate selection process. It allowed the GA GOP to allocate delegates in a more winner-take-all manner.
But those changes happened before 2020 and before the coronavirus pandemic intervened. That disrupted the plans for a March 24 primary since that fell at a point on the calendar when statewide lockdowns were beginning. That initially led Secretary Raffensperger to postpone the presidential primary, consolidating it with the primaries for state and local offices on May 19. Toward the end of March, Raffensperger then announced that all eligible Georgia voters would be mailed an absentee vote-by-mail request form for the May 19 primary.
However, Republicans less than happy about the mailed absentee applications and the lack of legislative input on the plan began calling for an even later primary date. Around that same time, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) extended the state of emergency in the Peach state to May 13, cutting into the early voting period for the May 19 primary. That led Raffensperger to move the primary back another three weeks to June 9. Absentee ballots requested before the second primary date change -- those with the May 19 date on them -- will still be accepted, and voters can still request absentee ballots up until election day on June 9.
All ballots are due to county elections offices on or before Tuesday, June 9.
Overall, the Democratic delegation in Georgia changed by four delegates from 2016 to 2020. Each of the categories of delegates -- district, at-large, PLEO and superdelegate -- increased by one over the last four years.
[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)
Georgia's 68 congressional district delegates are split across 14 congressional districts and have a variation of four delegates across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Georgia Democrats are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 5 delegates*
CD2 - 5 delegates*
CD3 - 4 delegates
CD4 - 7 delegates*
CD5 - 7 delegates*
CD6 - 5 delegates*
CD7 - 5 delegates*
CD8 - 4 delegates
CD9 - 4 delegates
CD10 - 4 delegates
CD11 - 5 delegates*
CD12 - 4 delegates
CD13 - 6 delegates
CD14 - 3 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 68 district delegates in Georgia occurred remotely in a pre-primary vote on May 23 via Google Forms Ballots and call-in voting. As the vote happened before the primary, slates for active candidates were selected and delegate slots will be filled according to the results within each of the thirteen congressional districts. The credentialling for that vote took place from April 13-May 8.
PLEO delegates will be remotely selected on June 20 -- also via Google Forms Ballot -- by the district delegates selected on May 23.
Finally, the at-large delegates will also be selected on June 20 by the state central committee. That selection process will happen virtually via Google Forms Ballot.
[Initially, before the coronavirus pandemic hit and when there was going to be a March 24 primary, Georgia Democrats had planned to hold post-primary congressional district caucuses on April 11 to select district delegates. Those district-level delegates to the national convention were to then have selected PLEO on April 25. Finally, the at-large delegates were to have been selected by the Georgia Democratic state central committee on May 16. All of those dates would have fallen before the May 19 primary much less the new date of the contest, June 9.]
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 Georgia statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the mid-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.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: US VIRGIN ISLANDS
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.
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.
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.
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