What if your delegates vote for someone other than the winner of your primary?

[mahina]

Are the delegates required to vote in accord with the state caucus vote? (Our primary is a caucus.) If not, if they can cast their votes at the convention for whoever they want, why do we have a caucus at all, why not just send a few random individuals to decide for us?
Does this seem just or right to anyone else?

[NoodleBoy]

1. delegates are legally obligated to vote for the candidate they pledged themselves to

unless the candidate releases them from that obligation, it's basically a contract violation to vote for a candidate other than the candidate you pledged to support and whose campaign trusted you enough as a leading citizen to get that vote.

Only "superdelegates"--a simple term for a complicated concept, basically a delegate with more than one vote-- are not obliged to vote for who wins the state's or region's caucus or primary, but they would lose alot of credibility if they did so.

[Totally Committed]

3. The delegates are only bound for one round of voting, right?

That's why nominations that go beyond one round of voting are called "brokered" conventions. After the first round, deals are made with delegates and/or delegations, and their votes are "brokered" (dealt) for. Deals are made, and all bets are off.

TC

[Totally Committed]

2. Don't delegates get to vote for whomever they want if no one is nominated in the first round?

Are you asking what if they vote for someone other than the winner of the state nom on the first round?

TC

[NoodleBoy]

4. typically, if someone enters the convention without formally dropping out,

but they won delegates, they're pretty much counted on to stay for the first round of voting. If the vote isn't immediately decided, they release the delegates they earned to vote for whoever they want. Many times, though, if something like that happens, candidates have agreements with each other saying that if voting goes into the second round, the candidate with the lower vote total will release their delegates who are encouraged by the candidate they initially supported to support the candidate they have the agreement with.

This doesn't have to happen though, if no candidate gets enough for the nomination but not enough are knocked out in a few rounds to put anyone over the top, the voting can go through several rounds with nearly the same number of votes for each candidate.

[mahina]

5. I just know that some of ours are committed already and are going to vote for

a certain individual regardless of the primary (caucus) election result, and that this is within our laws.
And I think it's junk.

[NoodleBoy]

6. those might be superdelegates