The smooth nature of major-party presidential nominations in the primary era has produced a general electorate that remains blissfully unaware of how they work in practice. For the past 60-plus years, neither party has needed more than one ballot to nominate a candidate, although it has come close for both -- 1976 for Republicans, 1984 for Democrats. Most Americans just assume that primaries and caucuses produce delegate allocations that remain bound to a candidate, and that the voting in each state will determine the nominee. That's ... not always the case. The close race in the Republican nomination contest may...
