Formula determines state’s 55 delegates

With the departure of former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson from the Republican presidential primary, some local early voters who cast their ballots for the favorite son are dismayed their votes were wasted.

Thompson cited poor showings in early primaries, plus a distant third-place finish in South Carolina where he had high hopes, as reasons for leaving the race before Super Tuesday on Feb. 5. However, his departure came a week into early voting in his home state of Tennessee, where some Thompson supporters rushed to the polls to cast their votes for the politician/actor thinking he would still be a front-runner on Super Tuesday, despite bad showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.

While another Republican candidate will emerge from the Volunteer State as its winner Feb. 5, the breakdown of how the state’s 55 delegates will be awarded for the National Convention is an exact formula.

The delegate rule is not a winner-take-all rule, but instead proportionately awards the delegates based on how they fare in the primary.

Of the 55 Tennessee Republican delegates, 39 will be elected on Feb. 5 as the delegates themselves must be elected to that role. There will be 27 individuals elected as congressional district candidates, three from each of the state’s nine congressional districts.

There will be 12 other delegates elected in an at-large capacity and then 13 more delegates will be elected by the party’s executive committee on March 1. The remaining three delegate spots are reserved for the top leaders of the state party.

The delegates are awarded to the candidates proportionally. However, if one candidate dominates the state, he will be given all the delegates. Specifically, if a candidate wins 66.6 percent of the vote statewide and 66.6 percent of each congressional district, then the candidate gets all of Tennessee’s delegates.

If no one achieves that lofty goal, then the votes will be handed out based on how candidates do within the districts. The winner of the district gets two of the district’s three delegates with the next highest finisher getting the remaining delegate.

A candidate who garners over 50 percent of the state’s votes will additionally receive seven at-large delegates as a bonus. The remaining five at-large delegates will be given out proportionately to candidates who earned at least 20 percent of the remaining vote.

Early voting for both the Democrat and Republican primaries will continue in the early voting room located downstairs at the county government building on Locust Street through Jan. 31. Hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.