Colorado Republicans want the state’s delegates to next year’s presidential nominating convention to pledge to support particular candidates rather than attend as unpledged delegates, according to a proposal released Friday by state GOP Chairman Dave Williams.

Williams said the change is intended to keep Colorado from getting drowned out when the state holds its 2024 presidential primary on March 5, known as Super Tuesday, along with at least 14 other states.

“We don’t want to get lost in the mix of Super Tuesday, so our goal with these changes is for Colorado to have a greater say on who the eventual Republican nominee becomes,” Williams told Colorado Politics in a text message. “We know presidential candidates want to bank as much delegate support as possible in preparation for a contested convention battle, so we want to leverage their motivation and reward any increased attention to our state.”

The state party’s current rules say delegates hoping to attend the Republican National Convention can pledge their support for a candidate but aren’t required to.

“[T]hese merit-based incentives will help Republicans in Colorado have their voices heard,” Williams said Friday in an email to party members describing the proposal.

Colorado is slated to send 37 delegates to next year’s RNC, which is scheduled for next July in Milwaukee. Three delegate slots are automatic, belonging to the state chair, the national committeeman and national committeewoman. The remaining 34 positions will be elected at state and congressional district conventions, apportioned according to the candidates’ share of the vote in the primary.

Under the proposed bylaws amendment, delegates will be bound to vote for the presidential candidate they pledged to support for two rounds of voting at the national convention. Presidential campaigns whose candidates clear 20% of the vote in the primary will also be allowed to nominate slates of delegates.

The changes must be approved by the state GOP’s central committee at its Aug. 5 meeting before taking effect, Williams said.

The central committee plans to elect a new state vice chair at the same meeting, following Priscilla Rahn’s resignation last month. Rahn, who was elected to a second term in March, said she stepped down to devote her time to campaigning for a seat on the Douglas County Board of Commissioners.

The delegate proposal marks a rejection of the Colorado Republicans’ approach ahead of the 2016 election, when the GOP’s executive committee voted to eliminate the nonbinding presidential preference poll at precinct caucuses, which were replaced four years later by the state’s presidential primary.

Without the traditional poll to give an indication which candidates state Republicans favored, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz swept the delegate selection process, winning every available pledged delegate to that summer’s RNC. Donald Trump, who held a delegate lead heading into the convention and ultimately won the nomination, blasted Colorado’s delegate process as “rigged.”

Running for reelection and facing only nominal opposition, Trump dominated Colorado’s 2020 primary and had unanimous support from the state’s RNC delegation.

While next year’s Republican primary field is crowded — in addition to Trump, declared candidates include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — Williams said that so far only the Trump and DeSantis campaigns appear to be active in the state.