What is the purpose of delegates in the nomination process?

Answer 1

Delegates are necessary in the nomination process to represent a population's beliefs in whom should be presented as their party's candidate for primary presidential election. Contrary to popular belief the United States is not a direct democracy (one vote per person), rather it is a representative democracy. A concept whereby the general population votes and based on the outcome of the popular vote, nominating representatives are obliged to cast their votes on behalf of the population at large. This is best represented by the Electoral College, during a presidential primary election. Both the Republicans and the Democrats borrow from this concept in order to cast support for their nominees at their annual conventions. The origins of this hearken back to the early days of the United States where it was not easy to collect ballots for the population at large. Hence, our founding fathers devised the representative democracy concept. Each voting precinct would cast their votes and their delegate would then travel to a centralized location to cast their delegate vote based on the overall will of the voting population in their precinct.