The complexity of the Republican presidential nominating process has been widely observed over the past few months. Its seemingly byzantine rules and procedures are only complicated further by the fact that many states have different methods for allocating their delegates. In particular, Pennsylvania divvies-up its delegates in a unique way.

The Keystone State’s 71 Republican national delegates are determined by its April 26th closed primary election. Only 17 of the delegates are bound to the candidate who wins the statewide vote – and that’s just on the first ballot. If no candidate has a majority of the delegates on that first vote at the Republican National Convention, then these 17 delegates are unbound and can vote for any candidate the convention rules allow. Pennsylvania’s other 54 delegates don’t even have to wait for that first ballot though. They’re all unbound throughout the entire process.

On primary day, each of Pennsylvania’s eighteen congressional districts will elect 3 delegates. Registered Republicans are allowed to vote for up to three of the candidates running to be a national delegate in their district. Those candidates run uncommitted, without any presidential candidate’s name next to theirs on the ballot. If elected, these delegates can support whichever presidential campaign they’d like and switch sides as many times as they want, regardless of their congressional district’s preference.

In order to run for one of these unbound delegate positions, you have to pay a fee of $25 and provide nomination petition documents to the Pennsylvania Department of State with at least 250 signatures from fellow registered Republicans within your congressional district. These are the basic requirements to get on the ballot, but staying on it, in this rough-and-tumble political season, necessitates a bit more precision and discipline.

A would-be delegate-candidate should be wary of having their name knocked-off the ballot. Other registered Republicans in their congressional district can file challenges against them on the grounds that they didn’t submit 250 legitimate signatures. In their petition against your nomination, the challenger will assert that certain signatures should not count and that without those signatures, the would-be delegate-candidate doesn’t meet the 250 signature threshold.

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One way challengers discount signatures is by asserting that a specific signature belongs to someone who isn’t a registered Republican or who doesn’t actually live in the correct congressional district, or both. Another challenger tactic is to discount an entire page of signatures with the argument that the circulator of that page isn’t from the correct congressional district. A circulator is someone who helps the would-be delegate-candidate collect signatures on their nomination petition documents. Circulators’ help can be crucial for anyone trying to get the required number of signatures because, per state rules, those signatures can only collected during the three weeks between January 26 and February 16 – a period when the weather throughout Pennsylvania is less than accommodating to extended sidewalk conversations and evening solicitations at the front door.

When challenged, a delegate-candidate has the right to fight back and argue that her signatures are legitimate and satisfy the state requirements. However, there are costs to fighting back. A candidate may be required to hire legal representation and spend hours in multiple court hearings. For some delegate-candidates, the fight is just not worth it.

Allen Stern faced this dilemma. After filing to run for Republican national delegate in Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional District, he was challenged by local lawyer Ron Hicks on behalf of Kaaren Amodeo and Denise Johnston. Stern says that he believes that the challenge is “bogus” and that all of his signatures are legitimate. Hicks stands by the validity of the challenge.

Despite Stern’s confidence, he chose not to fight the challenge and instead withdrew from the race. Stern explained that as a father of two, with a full-time job, he was worried about the time and expense that fighting the challenge would involve.

According to Stern, he had entered the delegate race to play a bigger role in the GOP grassroots; he wanted to put his stamp on the party platform at the convention. Stern said that after this experience though, he felt “completely disenfranchised” and asserted that the challengers “don’t want a fair playing field.” He claims that his candidacy to be delegate was challenged because he wasn’t one of the local GOP’s “anointed candidates.”

For its new documentary You Vote, They Decide: The Secret Campaigns for President, MSNBC interviewed the three remaining delegate-candidates in the 14th Congressional District. One of those candidates, Mary Ann Meloy, who was also a delegate to the 2012 Republican National Convention, explained how the local party influences this type of race: