Because U.S. Sen. John McCain will likely be the only candidate nominated, Utah's delegates will be casting their votes for him - despite Romney's overwhelming victory Feb. 5 in Utah with 90 percent of the vote.

"Our rules that were just clarified say that our delegation will vote for the [national convention] candidate who received the most votes in the primary," said James Evans, chairman of the Constitutional and Bylaws Committee. "If that candidate is John McCain, that is who they are bound to vote for."

The controversy started Feb. 29, when Romney sent a letter to state Republican chairman Stan Lockhart asking him to release those delegates bound to vote for him and to "encourage all released and uncommitted delegates to cast their votes for Sen. John McCain at the Convention."

The state party - faced with this problem for the first time since Utah had historically made its bid for president much later in the primaries - first put the issue of unbinding its delegates before state delegates at the Utah Republican Convention in June, but then postponed the vote.

The party's bylaws say national conventional delegates must be allocated to the candidate receiving the most votes in the Republican presidential primary.

But the word "candidate," the state party decided, is ambiguous: Does that strictly mean the candidate who won the primary, or could it mean the candidate who fetched the most votes in Utah and was nominated at the convention?

Members of the central committee voted 70-12 to adopt a standing rule that says it's the latter.

That means if at least four other states nominate Romney at the convention, so will Utah. If, however, the only nominee is McCain - who placed second to Romney in Utah's primary with 5 percent of the vote - the state's delegates will rally for him.

"The decision today had nothing to do with personality and has everything to do with simply interpreting an ambiguity in our rules," Lockhart said.

Those who argued against the standing rule Saturday worried that not voting for Romney could hurt his future chances of running for president and disenfranchise voters who supported him.

"The state delegates overwhelmingly wanted our Utah delegation to vote for Romney. It was pretty clear," said Don Guymon, a delegate to the national convention. "So my intent was to follow the will of Utah voters and the will of the Utah state delegates."

But Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert - who was chairman of Romney's campaign for president in Utah - said there should be flexibility in the process. Elected officials make decisions based on facts, but ones that are subject to change.

After Romney formally withdrew his candidacy, he "asked us to support McCain and I think respecting his wishes is an important part of the process," Herbert said. "That being said, too, we need to make sure we're doing it within the rules and guidelines of our bylaws."

lrosetta@sltrib.com