The Oregon Republican Convention this year will for the first time in at least 30 years meet in one location to select the delegates responsible for casting votes for a GOP presidential nominee this summer in Cleveland.

Oregon was the only state during the 2012 presidential election without a centralized caucus to select delegates to the national convention. Instead, state party members met in five different places — each in one of the state’s congressional districts.

“We got our fingers rapped by the RNC (Republican National Committee) last time saying you can’t have five locations. You have to do it in one,” said GOP gubernatorial candidate Allen Alley, who served as Oregon Republican Party chairman in 2012. “They said Texas can do it in one, so you can do it in one.”

The RNC didn’t exactly issue an edict to Oregon to consolidate its convention. But Oregon’s decentralized system caused a series of problems for state Republican Party leaders that year, which propelled them to make changes to the state convention, effective this year, said Solomon Yue Jr., Oregon national committeeman and member of the RNC’s rules committee.

The state party started holding five different conventions because of the way it picks delegates. Out of a total of 28 delegates, three are chosen from each of Oregon’s five congressional districts. Another 10 are elected to fill at-large positions, and three so-called “automatic delegates” serve by virtue of their position as state chairman, national committeeman and national committeewoman.

The idea behind different locations was that party members could vote simultaneously for their congressional delegates, at-large delegates and local party officers. The problem came when voting in the congressional districts fell out of sync. During the state convention in June 2012, some districts were lagging behind others and ran out of time to elect delegate alternates, before Alley adjourned the convention, Yue said. State party rules allowed party leaders to appoint the alternative positions, but that drew some challenges at the national level to the alternate appointees, he said. Ultimately, the RNC found that the state party had followed its own rules in selecting alternates, but the hassle and time demanded by the challenges gave state party leaders misgivings about their decentralized system.

“I think the ORP learned its lesson: We don’t want to run out time in 2016,” Yue said.

The 2016 Oregon Republican convention is scheduled for June 4 at the Oregon State Fair & Exposition Center.

The centralized location also allows nominees to speak to the entire party, “whereas before we would have had to be in five places at one time,” said Oregon Republican Chairman Bill Currier. “Instead of a few hundred people in each of five locations, there will be 1,200 to 1,500 people in one location.”

Oregon’s 28 Republican delegates are divided up proportionally among candidates according to the popular vote they receive during the May 17 primary. Unlike past elections, the three top ORP officials are no longer super delegates who are allowed to support any candidate for the nomination.

Oregon delegates are unlikely to play a role in a contested convention between New York billionaire Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. A contested convention is only possible if the frontrunner, Trump, fails to net the 1,237 majority required to secure the nomination.

During the Republican National Convention July 18 in Cleveland, Oregon’s delegates are required to represent the popular vote for at least two ballots. The exception is for delegates whose candidate has received less than 35 percent of support on the first ballot, at which point the delegate is free to pick any of the nominees.

“We are not free agents,” Currier said. “It seemed fairer to have them automatically bound rather than them getting to choose.”