GOP Primary Day Update

Courtesy of Dave Talan, here's a quick guide to what's going on, and what's at stake in tomorrow's Rhode Island Republican primary...

You can vote for any 8 Delegate candidates, anywhere on the ballot, no matter who you vote for for President.

Rhode Island is a "Proportional Representation" state. Any Presidential candidate, who gets at least 15 percent of the vote statewide, will get a proportional share of the 16 Delegates and 16 Alternates to be elected (8 Delegates and 8 Alternates in each Congressional District). (R.I. will also have 3 super-Delegates, the 3 National Committee people, who are not on the ballot tomorrow).

We expect a small turnout tomorrow (as little as 15,000 voters statewide), because the news media has told everyone that the race is already over and your vote does not matter. That means that as few as 2,250 votes for a Presidential candidate will be enough to win Delegates for him. So if your first choice is Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul; you should still go vote for them tomorrow, in order to elect Delegates who will promote their issues at the national convention...

You will NOT necessarily be voting at your usual polling place tomorrow. (A lot of polling places are being combined, due to the expected low turnout). Go to the Secretary of State's web site, to determine where you vote.

Sample ballots from the Secretary of State's office, where you can see who's running for delegate, are visible at the links below:

• Congressional District 1
• Congressional District 2

Finally, speaking as a fully disclosed Rick Santorum supporter and candidate for delegate, Dave expounds on why it is still worthwhile for Santorum supporters to get out and support their first choice for the nomination, even if the main question in the primary campaign appears to have already been decided...

If you had originally been planning to vote for [Rick Santorum], his R.I. supporters urge you to still go and vote for him tomorrow. Then, if he gets 15 percent of the vote, some of his Delegate candidates will be elected. They will go to Tampa to promote his conservative issues for the Party platform, and to educate the news media on conservative GOP issues.

That reasoning can pretty well be applied to all of the candidates on the ballot.