Three of the leading contenders to win the delegate nomination at Saturday’s GOP nominating convention grabbed the first three speaking slots.
The Utah GOP drew the speaking order for Saturday’s convention at Timpview High School. Rep. Brad Daw, R-Orem, Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem and Sen. Deidre Henderson, R-Spanish Fork will speak to delegates first. The three legislators are considered among the top contenders to advance to the August primary.
Former Utah State Rep. Chris Herrod goes fourth. Herrod is thought to be a dark-horse to win the delegate nomination this weekend.
Provo Mayor John Curtis, speaks in the final slot out of 11 candidates on Saturday. Curtis already secured a slot in the August primary election when he submitted 15,000 signatures to the Utah Lt. Governor’s office on Monday. Unless more than half of those signatures are thrown out, Curtis will be on the ballot. Curtis is the only candidate who is pursuing both routes to the primary, gathering signatures and facing delegates at the convention.
Political newcomer Tanner Ainge has already secured a spot in the August primary using the signature path.
Each candidate will get 6 minutes to make their presentation to delegates. That means it will be over an hour before the 1,000+ delegates get down to voting.
The overwhelming number of candidates on the ballot means there will most likely be multiple rounds of voting at Timpview High School. The moment one candidate gets a clear majority, 50-percent plus one, the election is over. But, until that happens, the voting continues.
With 11 candidates vying for the delegate nomination, there could be a maximum of 10 rounds of voting, a marathon to be sure. However, we’ll probably see fewer. Why? Because the rules allow for multiple candidates to be dropped in every round of voting.
Here’s how that will work.
Multiple candidates can be eliminated if the combined number of votes they pull in are less than the candidate above them. For example, if candidate #1 gets 24 votes and candidate #2 gets 25 votes, if candidate #3 has 50 votes, then #1 and #2 would be eliminated. The bottom three candidates could be eliminated if their combined vote total was less than the candidate who finished directly above them, and so on. However, there must be two candidates remaining on the final ballot.
The plan right now is to use electronic voting to expedite the decision. However, if the electronic system fails, the backup is paper balloting and manual counting. If that happens, delegates will be in for a long afternoon.
