The Great Primary Calendar re-shuffle Megathread

[Erc]

The Texas GOP is apparently close to giving up on the primaries and running its own County Conventions on April 14 or April 21.  The plan will be voted on by the State Republican Executive Committee this upcoming Wednesday.

http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/p/texas-gop-draft-plan-temporary-and.html

The Texas GOP appears to have approved the change, but it seems I overstated the vastness of the change earlier.

The delegates will still be bound based on the results of the primary (and the allocations of bindings are proportional).  The delegates are still bound for up to three ballots; they will not even be polled on the first ballot.

[Mr. Morden]

The Texas GOP is apparently close to giving up on the primaries and running its own County Conventions on April 14 or April 21.  The plan will be voted on by the State Republican Executive Committee this upcoming Wednesday.

http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/p/texas-gop-draft-plan-temporary-and.html

The Texas GOP appears to have approved the change, but it seems I overstated the vastness of the change earlier.

The delegates will still be bound based on the results of the primary (and the allocations of bindings are proportional).  The delegates are still bound for up to three ballots; they will not even be polled on the first ballot.

Sorry, can you clarify this?  Are you saying that the delegates will be chosen in April, but then their vote at the RNC will be bound by the results of the primary, which isn't until May or June?

[Erc]

The Texas GOP is apparently close to giving up on the primaries and running its own County Conventions on April 14 or April 21.  The plan will be voted on by the State Republican Executive Committee this upcoming Wednesday.

http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/p/texas-gop-draft-plan-temporary-and.html

The Texas GOP appears to have approved the change, but it seems I overstated the vastness of the change earlier.

The delegates will still be bound based on the results of the primary (and the allocations of bindings are proportional).  The delegates are still bound for up to three ballots; they will not even be polled on the first ballot.

Sorry, can you clarify this?  Are you saying that the delegates will be chosen in April, but then their vote at the RNC will be bound by the results of the primary, which isn't until May or June?

Sorry.  There will be district conventions in April, which choose delegates to the State Convention.  The State Convention (as a whole or by districts) chooses the delegates to Tampa.  These delegates need not be vetted or approved by any campaign.

The State Chairman then assigns each delegate a candidate they are bound to based on the results of the primary (each candidate gets a number of delegates directly proportional to the statewide vote). 

This allocation of delegates will be what Texas reports as its vote for the first ballot (the delegates are not even polled), unless the candidate decides to release them.  They are also bound on the second ballot (although the delegates may be polled?).  If a candidate receives less than 20% of the vote on the second ballot, their delegates are released for the third.  All delegates are released for the fourth.

So if this does drag out for several ballots, the preferences of the delegates (chosen by the State Convention only, not vetted in any way by any campaign) become important.

[Tidewater_Wave]

I take part of my comment about 100% back. If you think about it, it's tax dollars that fund the general election and tax dollars that fund both primaries. Both parties have a chance to vote in their own primaries. As Americans we have a duty to cooperate with the election process the same as politicians have a duty to leave office when voted out. Parties paying for their primaries partly is fine but tax dollars already fund the general election and it's not like anyone in either party is excluded from their own party. One vote each election and one vote each primary within one's party.

[Mr. Morden]

The federal court in Texas has ruled that the new primary date there will in fact be May 29, as expected:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/us/texas-primary-election-set-for-may-29.html

I've added that to the OP.  Also added the Guam convention on March 10:

http://mvguam.com/local/news/22223-guam-republicans-to-hold-state-convention.html

Will this end up being the last update to the calendar?  I mean, people have already been voting in various primaries for two months.....so about time for states to stop moving their primary dates around? 

[Yelnoc]

The federal court in Texas has ruled that the new primary date there will in fact be May 29, as expected:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/us/texas-primary-election-set-for-may-29.html

I've added that to the OP.  Also added the Guam convention on March 10:

http://mvguam.com/local/news/22223-guam-republicans-to-hold-state-convention.html

Will this end up being the last update to the calendar?  I mean, people have already been voting in various primaries for two months.....so about time for states to stop moving their primary dates around? 

Hopefully this is it.  For one last edit to the OP, you can remove this line:

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[jimrtex]

The Texas GOP is apparently close to giving up on the primaries and running its own County Conventions on April 14 or April 21.  The plan will be voted on by the State Republican Executive Committee this upcoming Wednesday.

http://hardincountyconservatives.blogspot.com/p/texas-gop-draft-plan-temporary-and.html

The Texas GOP appears to have approved the change, but it seems I overstated the vastness of the change earlier.

The delegates will still be bound based on the results of the primary (and the allocations of bindings are proportional).  The delegates are still bound for up to three ballots; they will not even be polled on the first ballot.

Sorry, can you clarify this?  Are you saying that the delegates will be chosen in April, but then their vote at the RNC will be bound by the results of the primary, which isn't until May or June?

In Texas, the primary-nominating parties, also hold conventions.  On election night, there are precinct conventions, and then a couple of weeks later county/senatorial district conventions, and then a state convention in early June.  The state conventions are really large, and can't be moved because of hotel reservations. 

Note, the senatorial district conventions aren't really for senate districts, but for splitting county conventions in larger counties.  They are optional, and even when held they are often held at the same location in a county.  The Democrats choose their sub-state-level national delegates by senatorial district, but these are done at the state convention, where delegates from all the counties in the senatorial district meet in a senatorial district caucus.  The Republicans choose their sub-state-level national delegates by congressional district, so even when they have senatorial district conventions, part of the process is based on congressional district.

The primaries determine the party nominees for all offices but president, and it is pretty hard to replace a nominee.  The conventions conduct party business and choose delegates to the next level.  The state convention chooses the delegates to the national convention.  Texas law requires at least 75% of non-official delegates to be based on the results of the presidential primary (based on can include winner-take-all, but the national party rules require proportionality - the Republicans did so for all primaries before April.

Though the national delegates are based on the primary, they aren't chosen until the state convention.  The Democrats poll their convention attendees on presidential preferences, and choose delegates to the next level based on the presidential preference.  The Democrats also choose national delegates in proportion to the poll taken at the precinct conventions (the so-called Texas Two Step, or Texas Double Cross).  They skirt the 75% requirement by having some of these national delegates be official delegates (while the intent is that these might be used for congressmen and the like, the Democratic delegates can be city councilmen and county offiicals, etc. chosen on the basis of which presidential candidate they support).

That is for normal years.

Back in December, after the Supreme Court issued its stay, the SA Court put out a truly ludicrous schedule that would have moved the primary (and precinct conventions) to April 3 and the county conventions to April 14/21.  That schedule assumed that new maps would be settled by February 1, and that an election that will take 89 days could be done in 63 days.  The Supreme Court hearing was January 9, the schedule assumed that the Supreme Court would issue their opinion, have it digested, and new maps drawn in 23 days.

The parties realized that the primary would not be on April 3, and that if there was a primary on May 29, they wouldn't have time for intermediate conventions before the state convention.   So they came up with a schedule that would have the county conventions before the primary.

Precinct conventions were eliminated, and the county conventions will be held on April 21 (this is the only part of the December court order that is still in force).  At the county convention, voters from each precinct will sit as a delegation, and have a voting strength equal to the number of delegates they would have chosen if there had been precinct conventions.

The Democrats will not be using the primary results at all, but will choose national delegates based on the proportion of participants supporting each candidate at the county conventions.

The Republicans will choose its delegates independently of the primary results, but will assign them a candidate who they will vote for in the first ballot of the national convention.  Under the original plan, the national delegates would have been chosen from actual supporters of the presidential candidates.  Under the new plan, there is a potential for fights to determine delegates at both the county and state conventions.

[Tender Branson]

I think this thread can be un-stickied now, with the TX date set.

[Mr. Morden]

I'd be happy to un-sticky it, if there are no objections.  I asked about possibly unstickying it earlier, and BushOK said that he liked having the primary calendar here on this board for reference.  But it can also be found countless other places as well.

I'll leave it here for at least 24 hours, and if anyone has opinions on whether it should remain stickied or not, you can weigh in.

[Tender Branson]

In about 1 week, starting with Illinois, there are only 10 "blocks" of primary days left and because the media will remind us each day which primaries will take place anyway, I think we don't need the stickied thread anymore.

For those who create their Atlas predictions, there's also the remaining calendar and if you fill out your predictions you know which primaries come up.

[Erc]

I generally keep the upcoming month of contests (excluding purely beauty contest primaries) at the bottom of The Delegate Fight sticky.  I can extend it further into the future if there's a demand.

[jimrtex]

Texas Democrats are using the county convention results on April 21.

[Mr. Morden]

OK, I'm unstickying it.  I may resticky it if there's a great public outcry.

[Yelnoc]

And so ends an era

[argentarius]

This has been the most epic fail of a calendar reshuffle. Let all the states until SC vote early and then get going with the big ones.

[Eraserhead]

I am annoyed by this no longer being stickied, for the record.

[Yelnoc]

Bumped so that the next time I go digging for this it isn't so far down.