RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – A federal judge has struck down a Virginia law that binds the states’ national political party delegates to a winner-take-all format, a ruling one GOP delegate hopes will embolden Republicans to vote for someone other than Donald Trump as their presidential nominee.
Judge Robert E. Payne ruled Monday that a law requiring the state to award all its delegates to the winners of the presidential primaries – and proscribes potential criminal penalties for those who disobey – is unconstitutional.
But the law was so obscure that the GOP delegates already planned on voting proportionally at the convention, and not winner-takes-all. The ruling does not free the delegates from voting proportionally based on the results of the March 1 primary, which Trump won.
Carroll Correll Jr., an anti-Trump delegate, had challenged the law.
