It appears you erred about a pretty major detail of the voting; from that press release: "The system will allow for as many additional rounds of voting as are necessary to declare a winner, which requires a majority of delegates’ votes."
There's no top-two runoff, no questions of "what if people vote Present on the third ballot"; the balloting will proceed as it would at an old contested convention (or, these days, vote for Speaker of the House) with votes being taken and counted until one candidate has an absolute majority.
(I was about to pull up Germany's system for the election of the federal Chancellor and the state Minister-Presidents, which maybe would have been relevant if it were going to be a strict three-round system, but it appears it's not.)
I really do think that they explained it as a top-two runoff in the meeting. It is possible that I am wrong, of course, or that the person explaining erred in the details. I tend to think the latter, because I twigged pretty hard at the runoff possibility and paid close attention to the rest of that question.
But, I guess, it hardly matters who was wrong if what I wrote was, in fact, wrong.
UPDATE (moments later): it looks like maybe the press release erred? Here is a passage from thr rules:
g. In the event that a nominating contest for President moves beyond the first roll call, the votes of all pledged and automatic delegates will be counted in each round of successive roll calls until a nominee is chosen. On the second, and any subsequent, roll call vote on the nominating contest for President, only the two candidates who have respectively received the highest number of votes on the first roll call shall be
eligible for nomination.
That last sentence is definitely a top-two runoff.
(Looks like I WAS wrong about superdelegates getting to vote for anyone in Round 2, though.)
Maybe the guy said it would only go to three rounds because he didn't consider the possibility of a "present" protest in the third round? But then how would the convention even reach a third round except for that, given the runoff kicks in at round 2?
Goes to show the importance of having the written rules, I guess!
Yeah, that definitely looks like an inconsistency between the rules and the press release. I doubt it will matter much this time around, but it should get sorted out in future.
It was 2.5 hours?!? You made a Friday’s meeting seem like it was 30 minutes long… wild that it took so long the second time
ENDLESS discussion section. (That's what happens when you put 186 people on a committee, I guess.)
Friday was a slick hour-long presentation where, importantly, delegates weren't allowed to speak.
It appears you erred about a pretty major detail of the voting; from that press release: "The system will allow for as many additional rounds of voting as are necessary to declare a winner, which requires a majority of delegates’ votes."
There's no top-two runoff, no questions of "what if people vote Present on the third ballot"; the balloting will proceed as it would at an old contested convention (or, these days, vote for Speaker of the House) with votes being taken and counted until one candidate has an absolute majority.
(I was about to pull up Germany's system for the election of the federal Chancellor and the state Minister-Presidents, which maybe would have been relevant if it were going to be a strict three-round system, but it appears it's not.)
I really do think that they explained it as a top-two runoff in the meeting. It is possible that I am wrong, of course, or that the person explaining erred in the details. I tend to think the latter, because I twigged pretty hard at the runoff possibility and paid close attention to the rest of that question.
But, I guess, it hardly matters who was wrong if what I wrote was, in fact, wrong.
UPDATE (moments later): it looks like maybe the press release erred? Here is a passage from thr rules:
g. In the event that a nominating contest for President moves beyond the first roll call, the votes of all pledged and automatic delegates will be counted in each round of successive roll calls until a nominee is chosen. On the second, and any subsequent, roll call vote on the nominating contest for President, only the two candidates who have respectively received the highest number of votes on the first roll call shall be
eligible for nomination.
That last sentence is definitely a top-two runoff.
(Looks like I WAS wrong about superdelegates getting to vote for anyone in Round 2, though.)
Maybe the guy said it would only go to three rounds because he didn't consider the possibility of a "present" protest in the third round? But then how would the convention even reach a third round except for that, given the runoff kicks in at round 2?
Goes to show the importance of having the written rules, I guess!
Yeah, that definitely looks like an inconsistency between the rules and the press release. I doubt it will matter much this time around, but it should get sorted out in future.