Pennsylvania Delegate Candidate Calls for Voters to Counteract State’s Unusual Election Rules

Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania – Charlie Kirkwood, candidate for Pennsylvania Delegate to the Republican National Convention, calls for voters’ input regarding the selection of a Presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention. Previously elected twice as a convention delegate, Kirkwood suggests a way for Pennsylvania voters to have their voices heard despite Pennsylvania’s unusual election rules. He suggests voters in his district input their preference directly via www.facebook.com/CharlieforDelegate to him and that all the delegates make the same arrangement.

All of Pennsylvania’s elected delegates run uncommitted to any presidential candidate in the primaries where the convention delegates are elected. Those who are elected are not bound to any presidential candidate even on the first ballot no matter how the presidential candidates fare in the primary. Thus, a voter who voted for, say, Sen. Cruz on the primary ballot may also have unknowingly voted for a delegate to the national convention who is a Trump supporter since none of the delegate candidates need declare whom they support. In virtually every other state, delegates’ votes must reflect the outcome of their states’ primary votes with regard to the Presidential candidates at least on the first ballot.

Kirkwood recently launched a Facebook page ( www.facebook.com/CharlieforDelegate ), allowing voters to indicate to him whom they support. He intends to maintain this website during the convention so voters can express their preferences right up to the final vote for the Republican Presidential candidate. He urges all delegates to do the same. He has already sent this message to approximately 195,000 potential voters in the 17th Pennsylvania congressional district soliciting their input.

In the current complicated Presidential race, Americans need ways to have their views expressed in a contested Republican convention. The last contested Republican convention occurred 40 years ago in 1976. The possibility of a contested convention this year requires delegates to know who voters want the nominee to be in the upcoming convention, taking place in Cleveland July 18-21, 2016.

For further information about Charlie Kirkwood as a Republican Delegate in the 17th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, please visit www.facebook.com/CharlieforDelegate . Voters are invited and encouraged to share their opinions.

About Charlie Kirkwood:

A lifelong Pennsylvanian, Kirkwood grew up in Bethlehem where both his father and grandfather worked at Bethlehem Steel’s grinder mill. He received his undergraduate degree at Williams College and later completed his LL.B. at Harvard Law School. After college, as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard, he served in Cuba during the Bay of Pigs invasion and Southeast Asia. Charlie established his own law practice overseas, where he met and married his wife, Ginny in Turkey where she was a Peace Corps volunteer. In 1977, Charlie and Ginny returned home to Pennsylvania and purchased the historic Shawnee Inn on the Delaware River, where they currently reside.

Charlie was twice elected Delegate to the Republican National Convention and served as Monroe County’s Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman for six years. If elected, Charlie intends to have the voters of the 17th Congressional District of Pennsylvania guide his vote at the 2016 Republican Convention.

For interviews, please contact Jeromy Wo, Communications Specialist at: 570-424-4000 or by e-mail at: [email protected]

Contact:
Jeromy Wo, Communications Specialist
Phone: 570-424-4000
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.facebook.com/CharlieforDelegate