According to the Republican National Committee, 2,472 delegates will be heading to Cleveland this July to take part in choosing a Republican candidate for president of the United States. Likewise, 4,763 will go to Philadelphia the same month to choose a Democratic candidate for president, according to the Democratic National Committee.
Among those who may attend are six residents of Lake Forest who are registered as delegates for Republicans, according to the website of the Illinois State Board of Elections. They are Reeve B. Waud and Alexander Stuart for Jeb Bush, Joseph Mislinski for Chris Christie, Dale Miller for Carly Fiorina, Adam Sachs for Rand Paul and Eugene Cummings for Donald Trump.
In Lake Bluff, Brian Dupuis is registered as a delegate for Bernie Sanders at the Democratic convention.
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“Each state is allocated a number of delegates depending on how big the state is,” said Robert Bruhl, clinical assistant professor in the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “The bigger states send more delegates.”
Rules on who gets to go vary by state. In Illinois, if you’re an active member of a political party but not an elected official, you can talk to the state party about being a delegate, he said.
“They can just be rich people who donated money to the party,” Bruhl said.
Brian Dupuis of Lake Bluff, who is registered as a delegate for Bernie Sanders, said he was asked by someone active with progressive Democrats if he was interested in being a delegate.
“I’ve never been to a Democratic National Convention or any political action convention,” Dupuis said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
For Dupuis to attend, Sanders will have to win the Democratic primary in Illinois. Only delegates whose candidate wins the primary in Illinois get to take part in their respective conventions, Bruhl said.
Delegates from those states where primaries are held are required to vote for the candidate chosen in the primary, at least initially, he said.
“After the first vote, if the convention doesn’t elect a candidate, those delegates can vote for anybody,” Bruhl said.
That, however, hasn’t happened for years.
“By the time the primaries are done, one of the candidates has enough delegates committed to him or her to win the nomination,” Bruhl said. “Conventions in the last 30 years have not been decision-making events. They have been coronations.”
Dale Miller of Lake Forest, a registered delegate for Carly Fiorina, can remember before that.
“In the old days, you didn’t know the candidate until halfway through the convention,” Miller said. “When I was a kid, you’d watch TV and you’d wait to see who the delegates elected.”
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