An email:
I am not a Trumpkin. I understand the difference between a plurality and a majority. But when people are talking about Trump delegates switching after the first ballot, isn’t that stealing the nomination? The Trump people will say that these delegates came to the convention saying they were Trump people and then betrayed him. Don’t they have a point? Sure we can say that the rules allow it but that doesn’t mean it’s the way it should be.
Either you put in place a new rule that says that nominations are decided by pluralities, or some delegates have to “betray” their first-ballot candidates. If the nomination requires a majority, the majority has to be built somehow. The argument that the convention owes Trump the nomination if he has a plurality of delegates, whatever you think of its merit, is an argument for getting a critical number of non-Trump delegates to abandon their first-ballot candidate. That’s just the way multiple ballots work, and there’s no scandal in it. It might be easier to see that there’s no scandal in it if the convention adopted an instant runoff.
No, Delegates Can't All Stay in Place