A Republican presidential candidate doesn’t have to accrue a majority of delegates in eight states to be considered for the nomination during a contested convention in July, former Republican National Committee lawyer Ben Ginsberg — the party’s preeminent election law expert — said Wednesday.
“In fact, that’s not a rule,” Ginsberg told MSNBC early Wednesday morning. “That’s part of what’s called the temporary rules. Each convention has to pass for itself the number of states that put a candidate’s name in nomination.”
In 2012, revisions to Rule 40 raised the required number of states from five to eight, but no number is in effect for the Cleveland convention, according to Ginsberg. “The 2016 convention and its rules committee has to make that decision,” he said. “So there is no eight-state rule in effect right now for the next convention.