On May 2, the Constitution Party held the second day of its virtual national convention. On the second ballot, Don Blankenship of West Virginia was nominated for president.
The first ballot did not produce a majority for any presidential candidate. Those results were: Blankenship 139.5; Charles Kraut 77.8; Samm Tittle 46.35; Don Grundmann 25.25; Daniel Clyde Cummings 13.1.
The second ballot: Blankenship 177; Kraut 86.75; Grundmann 24; Tittle 21.25. Thanks to Charles Deemer for this news.
For vice-president, the nominee is William Mohr. He was nominated unanimously.
I’m assuming those numbers aren’t supposed to be percentages?
That was my error, and I have now removed the percentages.
Since it’s an electronic convention why would they need proxies?
The Constitution Party was able to hold a virtual convention, why can’t the LP?
This is the first time that the CP has gone to a second ballot. In 2012, Virgil Goode eked out a hair over 50% on the first ballot versus Darrell Castle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Party_National_Convention
Something appears wrong with the numbers. There were 7 extra votes cast on the second ballot?
FIRST BALLOT:
Blankenship 139.5 (46.19%)
Kraut 77.8 (25.76%)
Tittle 46.35 (15.35%)
Grundmann 25.25 (8.36%)
Cummings 13.1 (4.34%)
TOTAL: 302 (100%)
SECOND BALLOT:
Blankenship 177.0 (57.28%)
Kraut 86.75 (28.07%)
Grundmann 24.0 (7.77%)
Tittle 21.25 (6.88%)
TOTAL: 309 (100%)
Not necessarily. More people could have been credentialed, or bothered voting if they missed the first vote.
The Constitution Party national bylaws had a provision that in case of some national emergency, it was legal for the party to hold a national virtual convention. That was very farsighted.
Inderesting, and of possible concern for them, is that over the past twenty years, participation at the CP’s nominating convention has been in steady decline. One would think that participation should increase with a virtual convention and the associated reduced fees and travel/lodging costs.
1992: 269 total votes
1996: 423 total votes
1999: 588 total votes
2004: not reported
2008: 516 total votes
2012: 402 total votes
2016: 339.5 total votes
2020: 309 total votes
Many of the votes at earlier conventions were proxies.
Edward, Proxies shouldn’t matter. The CP nominates their president by delegations whereby the delegation has a set number of votes based on a formula (Presidential electors, past performance, meeting attendance, assessments paid, etc.) and not the number of actual delegates present at the convention, physical or virtual notwithstanding. As long as a state is represented by at least one member of the delegation, ALL of their allotted votes can be cast. Thus, fewer votes being cast means FEWER STATE AFFILIATES participating in the nominating convention. This is what should be of concern.
As someone who has attended all 8 Constitution Party Conventions, I can give a partial answer to the change in total votes. When the American Independent Party of California was affiliated with the National Constitution Party it was eligible to vote over 60 votes for every election until 2012. Now here in 2020, it is eligible for only 3 votes. That by itself, makes a substantial change to the votes at the Convention. Under Constitution Party rules, a state only gets its full Electoral College vote (plus any bonus delegate votes) if the Party’s Presidential candidate was on the previous or currently qualified ballot for the current Election year. The same is applicable to other states that in the past have had the candidate on the ballot but haven’t during the previous 2 elections.
@Deemer, that is certainly a good point about the AIP and California and explains the 60-point drop between ’12 and ’16. Also since ’16, the party has lost Alaska, Idaho, and Virginia – and Oregon somewhere along the line – which could explain the 30-point drop between then and now.
But I think you are mistaken about the presidential election ballot access rule. Back when I was active with the party, the way I understood it was that that was just another bonus point and not a multiplier.
Too similar to Trump, who will already be on the ballot. Not the best choice.
@Jeff Becker- 7 votes were abstained in the 1st round, hence the 7 vote difference. Thank you for all of your statistics from the past! That is beneficial info.
NOOOO party hack caucuses, primaries and conventions, real or virtual.
NONPARTISAN nom pets and elections of ALL exec/judic officers
via APPV ( pending Condorcet ) by ALL Voters — NOT extremists in ALL parties.
Charles Kraut was running? I’m disappointed that Charles Krauthammer wasn’t running!
==
Jeff, does any of the decline have to do with some state parties getting suspended, or whatever’s been happening the last year or two on some state parties?
@SocraticGadfly – That’s kind of what I am asking about. A number of states have disaffiliated since 2012, yet very few new states have become organized as affiliates to offset those losses. For example, there is pretty much ZERO organization in any of the New England states. Just go to the party’s “State Parties” contact page and look at how many of them only list the regional director as their contact. Eighteen (18) by my count. That’s 36% UNORGANIZED! Sad.
Virginia disaffiliated last year. Why on earth would they ever expect to be seated at this year’s nominating convention? If they wanted to participate, they should have voted on re-affiliating an appropriate number of days prior. No one can have their cake and eat it too. Well, glad to hear that they may at least be interested in reconsidering.
Blankenship’s negligence caused the deaths of 29 miners, not minors. They should proof read their press releases 🙂
Constitution Party registration in New Jersey has exploded in the past couple years, and as of April it the Constitution Party is now the third largest party in New Jersey with 17,121 members. In October 2010, the party had just 136 members in the entire state and was sixth in terms of registrants!
https://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/assets/pdf/svrs-reports/2020/2020-04-voter-registration-by-county.pdf
https://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/assets/pdf/svrs-reports/2010/2010-statewide-voter-reg-summary-county-101910.pdf
He looks like the my pillow crackhead.
@Curtis LeMay – What’s New Jersey CP’s secret?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/six-months-election-six-states-130008012.html
Six months from the election, six states are poised to decide Trump-Biden race
Repeat in 2020 ???
Any idea why the Constitution Party is doing so much better in New Jersey on voter registration than in most, or maybe all, of the rest of the country?
This is a guess but I looked up the nj voter reg form online. The party space is a write in without any preprinted suggestions. Nj has both a conservative party and a constitution party. The official abbreviation for conservative is cnv and for constitution party it is con. My guess is a lot of people wrote con in the party space intending to register conservative or in some cases even republican and this was interpreted by registrars as constitution party. It’s not impossible that some were “conned” with forms that had con written in beforehand or after.
My further guess is that in 2010 the option to write in con and have it count as constitution either didn’t exist or was brand new.
Dalton, I don’t think so. As you say the Party registration form itself has a blank space to write the party in, without the abbreviations listed on the form. Rather instead, i think the surge is directly related to the states Party Affiliation Declaration Form which i have linked below. This is the form that one must fill in to change parties after registering. Third party registration is up across all parties in NJ, even for the defunct Natural Law Party. As each of these parties is listed on the form, people looking to jump ship see the various party names and i assume just decide they like the name of a particular party or think the name relates to their own political stance.
https://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/assets/pdf/forms-party-affiliation/party-affiliation-form.pdf
If that was the case, wouldn’t it also be the case in some other states which list constitution party? I doubt that form you linked is in widespread use. Rather, people fill out a new registration when they change addresses, or sometimes because they haven’t voted in a long time and got taken off the rolls. Not very many people bother to officially change their party if they are not updating their registration for other reasons. Sure, they can write out the full party name but a lot of them will abbreviate it out of convenience. As it stands if they abbreviate conservative as CON or CONS it will count as Constitution Party.
What’s different about New Jersey? What was different in NJ in 2010 vs 2020? It seems quite unlikely that NJ is a state where “constitution” sounds a whole lot better to voters than it does to voters in other states or to voters in NJ ten years ago? Most states do not have a long standing and fairly large Conservative Party. New York is the only other one that comes to mind, but they don’t have a recognized Constitution Party. Thus, it’s unlikely that many voters in other states would write in “con” or “cons” intending it to stand for conservative and have it be interpreted as “constitution” because the otherwise larger Conservative Party has the obscure official abbreviation “CNV”.
To test your theory, for example, https://dl.ncsbe.gov/Voter_Registration/NCVoterRegForm_06W.pdf lists the constitution party on the regular voter registration form, not just a separate party change form.
New Registration Data for North Carolina
Posted on January 21, 2020 by Richard Winger
Here is the January 18, 2020 registration data for North Carolina. The percentages are: Democratic 36.46%; Republican 29.94%; Libertarian .58%; Constitution .04%; Green .03%; independent and other 32.95%.
As of October 20, 2018, the percentages were: Democratic 37.88%; Republican 29.81%; Libertarian .53%; Constitution .01%; Green .01%; independent and other 31.76%.
You might argue that this is because Constitution Party had only just started being on the form in NC, but even in that time frame, they added fewer registered voters than the LP:
Jim on January 22, 2020 at 2:52 am said:
In real terms, over that same period:
+31,826 unaffiliated
+2,947 Libertarian
+2,405 Constitution
+1,309 Green
-38,429 Republican
-158,703 Democrat
New Jersey changed its registration process in early 2016.
The registration form has a party affiliation question, but it is optional. The party affiliation is a write-in with an unaffiliated box.
If a voter skips the question they are sent a party affiliation form, which lists nine parties. If the voter wants to be unaffiliated they have to subscribe to the following oath:
I, being a registered voter at the address listed below, do hereby declare that I do not want to be affiliated with any political party or group.
This may intimidate voters who want to answer “dunno” or “independent”.
I think voters way also be informed they had skipped the party affiliation question on the voter registration form. Instead of remembering that it was optional, they will conclude they had made a mistake and non-affiliation is not an option.
Since that time affiliation has surged (even the NLP has leapt from 37 to 7002).
The share of minor partyregistrations has been fairly steady: Green 13.8%, Libertarian 19.7%, Reform 2.6%, Constitution 23.1%, Natural Law 9.5%, Conservative 21.1%, Socialist 10.3%.
Greens may have dropped a bit, as voters drift back to the Democratic Party. New Jersey permits unaffiliated voters to affiliate on primary day and immediately change their affiliation to take effect the day after the primary, But minor party voters are stuck.
Libertarian affiliations show some variation, perhaps related to wanting to vote in a primary. Speaking in generalities Libertarians have more political awareness than for example someone who affiliates with a non-existent party. Reform does poorly because this is New Jersey.
There has been a bit of an uptick in Socialist registrations perhaps some think it is cool to be a Socialist.
My guess for the Constitution party is that it is listed as the “U.S. Constitution Party” some voters may link an oath with “support and defend the Constitution of the United States”.
Does anyone know the results for officers? Jim Clymer barely beat Darrell Castle from what I heard, but was that on the first ballot? We’re there other contests? A rules fight?
Jim Clymer is back in as Chair? Darrell was running? Didn’t Randy Stufflebeam run? Man, sounds like the old shuffling the deck chairs routine, but the Monster Raving Loony Party has the appropriate video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7S32pZrJ5M
Blankenship like trump belongs in the big house not the white house.
Constitution Party supporters made the correct decision by choosing Don Blankenship as their Presidential candidate because he will get more media attention than all of their former 2020 Presidential candidates.
Don Blankenship will continue to receive negative press especially about his misdemeanor, but many voters don’t trust the media and the judicial system.
These voters will be open to voting for him.
Don Blankenship is able to donate a lot of money for advertisements and get on the ballot in more states than the Presidential candidates who weren’t chosen at the Constitution Party convention because he’s wealthy.
Darrell Castle was not running for the office and there was only one ballot. Jim Clymer won with 69% over Randy Stufflebeam who got 31% He would have won by a larger margin, but a number of his supporters had to leave the telephonic conference before the ballots were distributed. Proxy votes were not permitted so they simply had to forego voting.
Don Blankenship interview on KDKA Radio Pittsburgh
https://www.donblankenship.com/posts-videos/in-the-news
He talks on the phone on talk radio, but doesn’t make any real effort to get on the ballot there?
Don Blankenship interview on WOCA Radio Ocala & The Villages, Florida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsjwf4SW53g
Don Blankenship interview on the Sharpe Way
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1yNGaBdmmDrJj
Don Blankenship interview on The Sons of Liberty Media
The interview starts around the 10 minute mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNKbxGFnaxY
What is the hometowns of our candidates. We will need them for writing them in.