Louisiana Republicans Elect National Convention Delegates

The 2012 Louisiana Republican State Convention met on Saturday in Shreveport and elected 30 delegates to represent the state in Tampa, Florida at the Republican National Convention. Under party rules, ten supporters of Rick Santorum were chosen. Five delegates are official Mitt Romney delegates and one is for Ron Paul. The other fourteen are technically unbound to any candidate and are expected to support Governor Romney.

Louisiana receives 46 votes at the national convention. Thirty were elected on Saturday. Three are automatic delegates. No one was nominated for the final thirteen positions, which were left vacant and may now be filled by the state party’s Executive Committee. The positions were left open by a majority of the delegates participating in the convention in order to facilitate talks with Ron Paul supporters who refused to participate in the convention in order to protest state party rules requiring presidential candidates to approve delegates allocated to them.

Earlier this week, Rick Santorum sent a letter to state GOP Chairman Roger Villere asking, in essence, that the party prevent “delegate stealing,” an informal term that describes the maneuver used by some presidential campaigns to put their supporters in spots won by opposing campaigns. The Romney campaign also sent a list of five official delegates and alternate delegates to Chairman Villere. The Party Executive Committee passed supplemental rules requiring that positions won by Santorum and Romney be filled with individuals approved by those campaigns.