Santorum asks RNC for Michigan probe

Rick Santorum's presidential campaign on Friday formally asked the Republican National Committee to wade into a dispute between Santorum and the Michigan Republican Party over the allocation of delegates. 

Santorum's campaign contends that the state GOP changed the rules for divvying out delegates at the last minute so Mitt Romney would get more.

"Please accept this letter as a formal request on behalf of Rick Santorum for President for an investigation by the Republican National Committee (RNC) General Counsel into the reversal of delegate allocation by the Michigan Republican Party following the 2012 Michigan Republican Presidential Primary held on February 28, 2012," Santorum chief legal counsel Cleta Mitchell writes. "This request is not about the allocation of a single delegate; it is about ensuring a transparent electoral process, avoiding unscrupulous tactics and backroom deals by establishment figures and campaigns who may have not received the result they hoped for at the ballot box."

On Tuesday, Romney won Michigan with 41 percent of the vote to Santorum's 38, but the former Pennsylvania senator's campaign said it had expected to win an equal amount of delegates because both Romney and Santorum won seven congressional districts in the state. The campaign also said it expected one at-large delegate each to go to Santorum and Romney, leaving both candidates with 15 delegates each.

But the state GOP announced on Thursday that Romney would be awarded 16 delegates and Santorum 14 and any expectation otherwise was due to a lack of clarity in how the delegate allocation process was explained.

In response, the Santorum campaign said that Romney supporters rigged the process so he wouldn't be embarrassed by not winning his home state in either delegate count or the raw vote. 

—This story was updated at 3:46 p.m.

Read the letter below:

Michigan+GOP+Letter

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