This is what happens if Republicans face a brokered convention

In other words, if after all of the voting no one wins, the delegates will keep voting until there’s a majority. And that’s where the deliberations come in.

State rules vary on the point at which committed delegates can change their minds. Candidates can release their delegates to vote for whomever they want. Often, delegates are allowed to switch their votes if their bound candidate sinks below a certain level of overall support. (In California, it’s 10 percent, for example.) But keep in mind that there are also those unbound delegates wandering around. They can vote however they want.

For a campaign, then, the goal after a candidate fails to hit 50 percent is to cobble together enough votes to hit the 50 percent mark. This is why the selection of the actual delegates — the people who will be in the room — will be critical. Two convention committees — the credentials and rules committees — help guide the process during the convention, including certifying delegates in the former case and setting the order of business in the latter. In 2012, Ron Paul supporters worked the rules in Maine to get a majority of the delegate slots, which resulted in the credentials committee yanking some — with a resulting fight on the floor.

It can get messy, fast.