Citizens of Whitemarsh, we hope you know there is a primary election on Tuesday, April 26th. You have a couple important choices to make. For both parties there are contested primaries for President of the United States and Attorney General of Pennsylvania. The Democrats also have a contested primary for Senator of the United States. For those of you that live in the 7th Congressional District, you also have contested primaries for the House of Representatives. On both sides there are also a handful of non-contested primaries, so you don’t really have a choice, unless you want to write someone in (feel free to write us in).
There are also two proposed amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution. You can read the proposed amendments here.
Then there are the delegates you vote to send to the Republican and Democratic Party Conventions. This process has become controversial due to the potential for contested conventions, what happens on second ballots, etc.
If you want to vote for the delegate who is at least loyal (initially) to the Presidential candidate of your choice, below is a breakdown from the Montco Voter Services’ website of where the delegates stand for the Democrats in the 7th Congressional District:
Here are the delegate candidates for the Democrats in the 13th Congressional District:
The Republicans do it differently. Delegates aren’t elected pledged to a candidate. This is from a website called The Green Papers:
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54 of the Commonwealth’s 71 delegates to the Republican National Convention will be directly elected (their names appear on the ballot) in a LOOPHOLE type primary, in which delegates are elected separately from a presidential preference. Each of the 18 Congressional District is allocated 3 delegates (54 = 18 districts × 3 delegates/district). Rule 8.4 of the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania’s Rules states that all delegates elected by Congressional District “…shall run at large within the Districts and shall not be officially committed to any particular candidate on the ballot.”.
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17 (10 base at-large delegates plus 4 bonus delegates plus 3 RNC delegates) of the Commonwealth’s 71 delegates to the Republican National Convention delegates are bound for the 1st ballot to the candidate who receives the most votes in the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary. The delegates are released if the candidate withdraws, suspends, or terminates his/her campaign or publicly releases his/her delegates. [Rule 8.3]
A local radio host asked the delegates how they planned to vote at the convention if selected as a delegate. Here are the candidates running for delegate in the 7th and 13th Congressional Districts:
For the 7th:
For the 13th:
Sample ballots and where to vote:
 Whitemarsh East 1_SampleBallot.pdf | St. Thomas Church, Bethlehem Pike |
| Whitemarsh East 2_SampleBallot.pdf | St. Paul’s U.C.C., Bethlehem Pike |
| Whitemarsh Middle 1_SampleBallot.pdf | Old Township Building, 4021 Joshua Road |
| Whitemarsh Middle 2_SampleBallot.pdf | Plymouth Meeting E.C.C. Church, Germantown Pike |
| Whitemarsh Middle 3_SampleBallot.pdf | Messiah United Methodist Church, Ridge Pike |
| Whitemarsh Middle 4_SampleBallot.pdf | Whitemarsh Elementary School, Joshua Road |
| Whitemarsh Middle 5_SampleBallot.pdf | Barren Hill Volunteer Fire Company, Germantown Pike |
| Whitemarsh West 1_SampleBallot.pdf | Spring Mill Fire Company, North Lane |
| Whitemarsh West 2_SampleBallot.pdf | Cedar Grove Barn, Cedar Grove Road |
| Whitemarsh West 3_SampleBallot.pdf | Masonic Home, Ridge Pike |