RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And in Michigan, there's a fight going on over one delegate to the Republican National Convention. Rick Santorum's campaign team says its candidate is a victim of, quote, thuggery. They accuse Michigan Republican leaders of engineering an after-the-fact rules change to give Mitt Romney a slim lead in delegates from last Tuesday's state primary.
We have more from Michigan Public Radio's Rick Pluta.
RICK PLUTA, BYLINE: Rick Santorum's campaign says the plot was designed to ensure Mitt Romney did not suffer the humiliation of a tie in delegates from the state where he was born and raised. Tuesday's primary vote was very, very close, but the party still awarded Romney both the state's at-large delegates instead of granting one apiece to each candidate.
JOHN BRABENDER: This is nothing short of shocking.
PLUTA: John Brabender is a senior Santorum adviser. He says one delegate out of the more than 2,200 headed to Tampa is not the issue.
BRABENDER: I think people need to get to the bottom line and know exactly what happened, when it happened, why it happened.
PLUTA: Matt Frendewey, of the Michigan Republican Party, says there was a miscommunication after the state GOP changed its rules a month ago.
MATT FRENDEWEY: There's no backdoor deals. There's no, you know, smoke-filled rooms, as some people may allege.
PLUTA: But another top party official says otherwise. Mike Cox is a former state attorney general and a Romney supporter. He says the state GOP did change the rules, and it was wrong.
MIKE COX: It does kind of resound of third-world countries.
PLUTA: The Santorum campaign says it will ask the Republican National Committee to investigate.
For NPR News, I'm Rick Pluta in Lansing, Michigan. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
