That’s just great. Now we have the lawyers taking control of the party’s delegates and floor action. Nope, can’t let the delegates work it out themselves.
They held a primary preference poll. The people voted. The Nevada rules state that the delegates are bound to the candidates for whom the people voted.
But since there is a convention to go to, people get to run to go to the convention. It’s fun, and there’s also a lot of work to do there, and people consider it an honor to get selected. That’s what the conventions are for, to select the people to go.
A “saner” approach would be the one some states use, where candidates offer a slate of delegates in the primary. But this allows party faithful to take part in the process.
Unfortunately, there is one candidate who believes it is OK to send delegates who will lie about who they support, to gain election at state conventions under false pretenses. They think they can then go to the convention, and break the rules and the binding of the state voters. They are trying to disenfranchise the primary voters.
This is different than where actual candidate support is determined in caucuses, where the people who show up are given the right to choose the candidates. Except usually there Paul also got beat soundly — and like in Iowa, had supporters assigned to pretend to be for other candidates where Paul couldn’t win a precinct; the idea being when they got to the next level, they would all vote for Paul delegates, again packing the convention.
Of course, in many instances those delegates are also bound for the first round, and unless they break the rules, this won’t bother Romney a bit. If they made it to a 2nd round, they might cause more trouble.
The bigger problem will be if they get enough to screw up the party platform. Imagine a foreign policy plank written by Ron Paul zealots — who generally are even more nuts when it comes to our military than Ron Paul himself.