Brokered convention

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A brokered convention (sometimes referred to as an open convention and closely related to a contested convention), in US politics, can occur during a presidential election when a political party fails to choose a nominee on the first round of delegate voting at the party's nominating convention.

Once the first ballot, or vote, has occurred, if no candidate has a majority of the delegates' votes, the convention is then considered brokered. The nomination is then decided through a process of alternating political horse trading, delegate vote trading and additional revotes.^[1][2] In that circumstance, all regular delegates, who may have been pledged to a particular candidate according to rules that vary from state to state, are "released" and may switch their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round of balloting. It is hoped that the extra privilege extended to the delegates will result in a revote that yields a clear majority of delegates for one candidate.

The term "brokered" implies a strong role for political bosses, which used to be more common and is associated with deals made in proverbial "smoke-filled rooms". The term "contested" is a more modern term for a convention in which no candidate holds a majority and the role of party leaders is weaker than it once was in determining the eventual outcome.^[3]

For the Democratic Party, unpledged delegate votes, also called "superdelegate votes", used to be counted on the first ballot. The term "brokered convention" has referred to a convention whose outcome is decided by superdelegate votes, rather than pledged delegates alone, but that is not the original sense of the term and has not been a commonly-used definition for a "contested convention."^[4] As of 2018, Democratic superdelegates will participate only if no winner emerges after the first round of balloting.