<P> Since the 1970s, voting has for the most part been perfunctory; the selection of the major parties' nominees have rarely been in doubt, so a single ballot has always been sufficient . Each delegation announces its vote tallies, usually accompanied with some boosterism of their state or territory . The delegation may pass, nominally to retally their delegates' preferences, but often to allow a different delegation to give the leading candidate the honor of casting the majority - making vote . </P> <P> Before the presidential nomination season actually begins, there is often speculation about whether a single front runner would emerge . If there is no single candidate receiving a majority of delegates at the end of the primary season, a scenario called a brokered convention would result, where a candidate would be selected either at or near the convention, through political horse - trading and lesser candidates compelling their delegates to vote for one of the front runners . The best example was the 1924 Democratic Convention, which took 103 ballots . The situation is more likely to occur in the Democratic Party, because of its proportional representation system, but such a scenario has been the subject of speculation with regard to most contested nominations of both parties without actually coming to pass in recent years . It is a common scenario in fiction, most recently in an episode of The West Wing . The closest to a brokered convention in recent years was at the 1976 Republican National Convention, when neither Gerald Ford nor Ronald Reagan received enough votes in the primary to lock up the nomination . Since then, candidates have received enough momentum to reach a majority through pledged and bound delegates before the date of the convention . </P> <P> More recently, a customary practice has been for the losing candidates in the primary season to release their delegates and exhort them to vote for the winning nominee as a sign of party unity . Thus, the vote tallied on the floor is unanimous or nearly so . Some delegates may nevertheless choose to vote for their candidate . And in 2008 both happened: Hillary Clinton received over 1,000 votes before she herself moved to nominate Barack Obama by acclamation, officially making it a unanimous vote . </P> <P> The voting method at the conventions is a "roll call of the states"--which include territories such as Washington D.C., American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and a catch - all "delegates abroad" category . The states are called in alphabetical order (Alabama is first; Wyoming is last). The state's spokesperson (who generally begins his or her speech with glowing comments about the state's history, geography, and notable party elected officials) can either choose to announce its delegate count or pass . Once all states have either declared or passed, those states which passed are called upon again to announce their delegate count . (Generally, a decision is made beforehand that some states will pass in the first round, in order to allow a particular state--generally either the presidential or vice presidential nominee's home state--to be the one whose delegate count pushes the candidate "over the top", thus securing the nomination .) </P>

Who sets the rules governing the national convention