Thursday, January 24, 2008

Delegate Selection Process in the state of Illinois

It looks like the focus of my work for the next 13 days will be in the State of Illinois. If anyone is interested in the Illinois GOP nominating procedure for delegates to the GOP National Convention (the body which will put forth the a US presidential nominee from the GOP) you can reference this website:
http://www.digitalvictorycms.com/_uploaded/661394-2008ILRepublicanNationalDelegateSelectionProcess.pdf
This shows that Illinois is not a winner take all state, it is a state whose delegates are largely committed according to the elections determined at the Congressional level.

If Ron Paul gets one of his delegates advanced out of the 1st Congressional district (the district I live in), he has essentially won that district. If he gets 57 delegates advanced out of the 57 Congressional district in Illinois, he has won Illinois because that means 57 of the 70 delegates from Illinois are bound to vote for him.

What the media will report on is the preference poll. This poll means very little in terms of who will actually become president. It has no effect whatsoever on the delegate selection process. People who come out well in this process look good in the media, which is important, but that is all they gain from that preference poll.

- Allan
(writing from Blue Island, IL)

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