Because of COVID, the Virginia Republican Party could not hold an in-person convention to nominate their slate for the 2021 Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General elections.
Each county and city in the state had a calculated number of delegates. The number of delegates for a municipality was determined by its support of Republican candidates in 2017 statewide and 2020 national elections. I don’t know how each municipality decides who their actual delegates are going to the convention at Liberty University.
Since an in-person convention was not possible and a primary may not produce good choices, the party needed to develop a new approach to determine nominees. With a primary and seven candidates for Governor, a person with 16% of the votes could have won. In Virginia, primaries are open to all registered voters and mail-in procedures.
So, they went to an open delegate one-day ranked ballot process.
Any registered voter in the state could register to become a delegate. However, on the application, it indicated a delegate was to support the Republican candidates in November. But I don’t think they will follow you into the voting booth in November to make sure.
Each municipality only has its allotted number of delegates, and the voters in the county’s results are normalized. This procedure is to eliminate one area of the state from overwhelming the results.
I signed up to be a delegate for Stafford County. I know I won’t be voting for McAuliffe in the fall.
The voting was on May 8, 2021, from 9 am to 4 pm at the Prince William Fairground. There were no mail-in options and only a few absentee exceptions.
Once accepted as a delegate, I started receiving 20 to 50 texts, 20 to 50 emails, 20 robocalls, and a few mail pieces a day. After reading the first couple, I decided to ignore the remaining contacts. There were 17 candidates across the three positions. In this environment, these advertisements were the least effective methods.
The convention used a ranked ballot. Meaning, I had to rank the seven Governor nominees from first to the seventh choice. Once my first choice from eliminated, my second choice was my vote.
I didn’t have time to read the hundreds of texts and emails. So, I went to the 17 web pages for the candidates to do my research and rankings.
I was impressed with the candidates. Unlike choices in the 2020 senate primary, I liked the qualifications of the candidates for their prospective office. I would not disagree with any as a nominee. Differentiation was difficult, but I was able to create my rankings.
Armed with my rankings, on May 8, I drove to the Prince William Fairgrounds. Going there took about 40 minutes, and using the backroads took an hour to come home. We had an option to stay in our cars and vote or come inside a building to vote. I chose the latter.
I was surprised by two things, the gauntlet of people handing out information about their candidates and the lack of face masks.
I wonder what type of person the campaigners were trying to attract. If I only had to vote for one person, a last-minute speech may influence me. A flier won’t help me at the last minute. Do I place that candidate 3rd or 4th? Maybe, others didn’t do their homework.
There were not many masks outside, and I don’t remember if the campaigners were wearing masks. It was outside, and we may have been vaccinated. But inside, every person at the tables checking ids and handing out ballots was maskless. I have been vaccinated but know I can still catch COVID. Only the symptoms will not be as severe. Just before entering the building, I put on my mask. I have a marathon coming up next week.
On Sunday, the counting process started. The party’s Virginia website had a link to the calculation spreadsheet. The counters segregated the ballots by each municipality and then by the first choices. If no candidate had more than 50% of the vote, they pulled the candidate with the lowest vote count from the contest and reassigned those ballots to their next choice.
I went to find the spreadsheet. The link is no longer available. The leading candidate of all three races after the initial round were the final nominees.
Will the same people who touted Vice President Harris for her diversity support Lt Governor nominee Sears?