Earle Mack: GOP Delegates Should Vote Conscience

Influential Republican and philanthropist Earle Mack is urging GOP convention delgates to vote their consciences next week -- even if that does not mean voting for the presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

In a column at The Hill, the former ambassador to Finland, who was an early member of the effort to draft House Speaker Paul Ryan for president, said, "Republican delegates deserve the right to vote their conscience."

But while some Trump opponents have used the so-called "conscience clause" as a last-ditch effort to prevent his nomination, Mack argues that allowing delegates to vote their conscience instead of for the candidate they are pledge to "won’t derail Trump’s candidacy, and in fact could actually reaffirm it and ultimately unite our party."

Mack writes: 

If a minimum of 28 'Never Trump' delegates vote to unbind their votes for Trump, then the Rules Committee is obligated to bring a motion to the convention floor. That will decide if the delegates can be un-bound from the candidate who got the most votes in their state and enable them to vote their conscious, i.e., a different candidate. If the ’Never Trump’ delegates succeed in bringing the vote to the floor and Trump still wins the majority of delegates — that is the validation that should unite the party.

If Trump does win the nomination in such a circumstance, he argues," this will allow the party to come together and leverage the grassroots strength that is the DNA of the party."