Delaware Plan

The Delaware Plan is an attempt to provide states with meaningful input into the electoral process.

The meaningfulness of their role in the process is secured by the fact that no candidate will be able to achieve a majority of delegates even by the end of the third group's vote in May.

These twelve states, though needing to wait to vote last, will nonetheless determine the winner, as between them they control more than 50% of the delegates to the national conventions.

Originally, the New Hampshire primary was held in mid-March of the election year, and the Iowa caucuses a week or two earlier.

By the time of the 2000 campaign, despite the wide open field involving many serious candidates, George W. Bush had secured the nomination by mid-March, many months before the convention.

Worse yet, in the eyes of many observers, many voters in large states which would not vote until April (or later) would have no say in the nominating process.

[4] The plan was originally proposed by the Republican National Committee in the spring of 2000, to take effect in the 2004 campaign.

More significantly, Republican leaders worried that, if they acted unilaterally, that they would be handing a huge advantage to the Democrats.