Traditionally, historians record the rollcall vote for president at major party national conventions. However, that job is getting more and more difficult, as shown by what happened at the September 3 Republican convention. TheGreenPapers has an interesting account of the true rollcall in St. Paul. The votes from the various state delegations included 15 votes for Ron Paul, and 2 votes for Mitt Romney. However, the presiding officers of that convention did not repeat the votes for Paul (although they did acknowledge the 2 votes for Romney), and it seems that no official record was made of the Paul votes. Here are the details from TheGreenPapers. Scroll down to the notes.
Past Republican conventions did keep a tally, even when the votes were one-sided. The runner-ups at each convention during the past 40 years were officially credited with this number of votes: 1968 Nelson Rockefeller 277; 1972 Pete McCloskey 1; 1976 Ronald Reagan 1,070; 1980 John Anderson 37; 1984 unanimous; 1988 Pat Buchanan 18; 1992 Pat Buchanan 43; 2000 unanimous; 2004 unanimous. Thanks to the Rhodes Cook Letter for this past data.
It is true that Ron Paul did not meet the convention’s qualifications to be nominated. That required majority support in at least 5 state delegations. Specifically, a candidate had to submit a petition in order to be considered nominated, signed by a majority of delegates from 5 states. However, there is a distinction to be made between the ability of a candidate to be placed in nomination, and the ability of a delegate to vote freely for the candidate of his or her choice, and to have that vote recorded.
This year’s Democratic convention tally was Obama 1,549.5; Clinton 341.5. Only the states above New York in the alphabet cast votes.
