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Posted: 2016-03-16T19:09:26Z | Updated: 2016-12-23T20:24:06Z

For the first time since 1976 , Republicans are facing the possibility of not having a presumptive nominee when their nominating convention begins in mid-July.

If they can't find a nominee on the first ballot, or voting round, it will be the first time since 1952 that either party has had a contested convention (the 1976 convention was settled on the first ballot ).

There is still a strong possibility that GOP front-runner Donald Trump could get the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination outright. For that to happen, though, he needs to win 591 of the 1,103 remaining delegates -- not impossible or even improbable given the upcoming primaries, but challenging enough that talk of alternative scenarios is justified.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would need a highly improbable 840 more delegates to win outright, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich would need 1,095. If Trump isn't the nominee by delegate majority, the only other likely scenario is that nobody will be, and we'll have a contested convention. (Note: The delegate counts from the March 15 contests are not final. The delegate counts listed above will change.)

So what would a contested convention mean? Well, to start, lets look at how a non-contested Republican convention would work.

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What would a non-contested Republican convention look like?

Usually by the time the Democratic and Republican conventions roll around in July and August of an election year, the nominees have been known for a couple of months or more. In 2012, for example, Republican nominee Mitt Romney locked up the delegate majority at the end of March . In 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was the presumptive nominee by early March . Sometimes it drags on longer -- the Democrats had to wait until early June for Barack Obama to win the delegate majority.

For the overwhelming majority of elections in which a candidate has a delegate majority, the convention nominating process is pretty simple -- its mostly a formality to coronate the nominee and launch the general election campaign. The delegates vote, but its clear who will win.

In this situation, other candidates holding delegates usually allow them to vote for the nominee. In 2012, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) released their delegates and allowed them to vote for Romney, since he already had the majority. Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton did the same so that her delegates could vote for Obama on the Democratic side in 2008.