 Before 1936, the rule for nominating candidates for President and Vice President required a two-thirds vote of the delegates.However, this rule was abolished at the 1936 Democratic Convention, and conventioneers adopted a rule which provided that a simple majority could nominate, allowing for candidates to more easily be nominated and thus produce less balloting.It also began to diminish the South's clout at the convention, making it easier for Democrats to begin adopting civil rights and other liberal ideas into their platforms; while the two-thirds rule had long given the South a "de facto" veto on presidential nominees, Roosevelt pushed for the removal of the policy, in part due to past deadlocks (for example, the 1924 presidential nomination had required 103 ballots over a month).