The Republican nomination for Congress in Virginia’s 7th District will be decided by an “unassembled convention” on Saturday, July 18.
The Rules Committee met on Saturday. The meeting was publicly available for all via Facebook video.
For voting for congressional nomination, the procedure is for delegates to receive their first ballot at the time they register, which needs to be between 8am and 11am. Delegates can cast their first ballot right away. Then we wait. If no candidate receives a majority on the first ballot, then the bottom two drop off. Then another round of voting will take place and the same procedure is repeated; if no candidate receives a majority then the bottom two drop off. With 6 candidates we could see a maximum of 3 ballots.
One member of the committee offered an amendment that would have given the congressional nomination to a plurality winner on the first ballot. Plurality for congressional nomination happens in state-run primaries, not at a convention. And when you consider that there are 6 candidates in the field, plurality would not give the nominee a mandate to run. Finding a majority, and then hopefully a call for acclamation, are some of the best qualities of nomination by convention. The plurality amendment didn’t even get off the ground as it failed to garner a second, so it was defeated without giving the terrible idea the respect of a vote. Cheers to the 7th District committee for shutting down that nonsense.
For State Central Committee (SCC), there will be just one round of voting. The top 3 are in, the rest lose. This blog encourages delegates to vote for Susan Lascolette, Dewey McDonnell, and David Ross for SCC. All 3 have served the 7th District well and deserve to be re-elected.
Here are the details on attending the convention (not the rules) released by the district committee-
