Gingrich didn’t file full slate of New Hampshire delegates

When Newt Gingrich filed his New Hampshire presidential primary papers on Nov. 18, he listed only 27 delegates - 13 short of the 40 that candidates are required to provide.

Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman all provided the names of 20 New Hampshire supporters who would represent them at the Republican National Convention, as well as the 20 required back-ups.
 
Not meeting the requirement doesn’t disqualify a candidate. In addition to Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer provided only partial lists.
 
The Gingrich campaign was able to get 14 delegates and 13 alternates to file with the Secretary of State, although as the New Hampshire Journal noted, three of those supporters are members of his staff.
 
Gingrich would likely have no problem filling out his list of New Hampshire supporters today, as he began rising in the polls about a week before the filing deadline and landed the endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader on Nov. 27.
 
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner wouldn’t speculate on what a partial list of delegates means in regard to a campaign’s organization or preparedness, but the New Hampshire Journal said that this “is an indicator of the extent to which the (Gingrich) campaign is starting from scratch – and could signal a lack of basic organization.”
 
“Filing a slate of delegates isn’t complicated, but it does require advance planning, as each delegate or alternate needs to sign his or her own form. It’s not the sort of thing that can be left to the last minute,” the paper continued.
 
A side-by-side comparison of the Romney and Gingrich filings seems to confirm this. Romney’s delegates are evenly and neatly typed, while Gingrich’s partial list was done by hand with corrections inserted or written over.
 
Delegates are also required to file paper work with the Secretary of State, and commit to showing up at the national convention if selected. According to Gardner, 10 percent of the vote in New Hampshire wins a candidate at least one delegate, meaning that if only one candidate surpasses the 10 percent mark, all 20 of the state’s delegates would be awarded to him or her.

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