At the risk of suggesting you haven’t read rule 40b let me “(b) Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall
demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of eight (8) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of
the name of that candidate for nomination.”
My concern is that some can’t read or don’t want to read. You cannot vote for anyone not legally in nomination no matter how much you want to .
Rule 40 d points out that only “entitled “ to be cast are counted. “(d) When at the close of a roll call any candidate for nomination for President of the United States or Vice President of
the United States has received a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the convention, the chairman of the convention shall
announce the votes for each candidate whose name was presented in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (b) of this rule.
A vote for a non nominated person is not “entitled to be cast”. Rules are rules. Time for the rules. And there will be no changing the rules without a floor roll call vote!! Awesome. You don’t think Trump and Cruz would help cut their own throat do you?
>> A vote for a non nominated person is not “entitled to be cast” <<
I don’t read it that way. To me, “entitled to be cast” refers to the number of votes each delegation is allocated. So if New York has been allocated 95 votes, then NY is “entitled” to cast 95 votes.
Moreover, the total number of votes “entitled” for the whole convention is 2472. So a majority is anything more than 1236.
Now if some votes are cast for candidates not formally nominated, the current wording of Rule 40d seems to say that those votes will not be announced by the Chair. So I think they will just be treated as abstentions. But the requirement for a majority of at least 1237 votes will still be in effect.
>> there will be no changing the rules without a floor roll call vote!! <<
The 2012 rules can be changed by the Rules Committee. Then the 2016 rules can be changed with a vote on the floor. Not a mystery or a surprise.
>> You don’t think Trump and Cruz would help cut their own throat do you? <<
No. But if the lawyers for the Rules Committee should agree with your very restrictive reading, then the Committee members for Cruz would get together with the Committee members for Kasich and Rubio and change the rules so as to allow votes for the latter two gents on the first ballot.
Then what I think next is that on the second ballot, the delegates previously pledged to Rubio, Kasich and maybe Trump will start moving over to Cruz. If Cruz isn’t the winner on the second, he will probably win on the third.
Actually, the rules can be changed on the floor by a voice vote - it happened in 2012. And once the chair says "the ayes have it", that's all she wrote.