Clark County Democratic Convention - 2016 Part 3 of 3

In Part 3 of this account I discuss why the ballot turned out the way it did, what the implications of this ballot are for the National Democratic Convention, and a few other issues that were raised in the last couple weeks.

Let us first examine the factors that influenced the outcome of this vote. Why did Clinton lose the vote on Saturday, when she was awarded over 800 more delegates than Sanders at the precinct caucuses? Clinton followers on various social media are advancing a number of theories to explain this loss. I will go through the ones that I have seen.

(1)   The e-mail sent on March 30 lowered turnout among Hillary delegates. The first blog in this series contains an image of the email I received: Clark County Democratic Convention Part 1

This claim is usually associated with a figure that about 20% of Hillary’s delegates received the e-mail and it was sent by Christine Kramar (she was the chair of the credentials committee that was removed on Saturday morning). I have not been able to find any official discussion of the e-mail, but, was told by several people that the Clark County Democratic Party claimed it did not send the e-mail at the Friday night check-in. On Friday night, the Clark County Democratic Party also told people they had to show up on Saturday. The claim that 20% of Hillary’s delegates received the e-mail also implies that none of Bernie’s delegates received the e-mail. Yet, I received it, and I am a Bernie delegate. I talked to other Bernie delegates that also received that e-mail. I don’t know how many people received, but, enough people received it that the Sanders campaign felt compelled to send out an e-mail telling their supporters they needed to show up on Saturday, and to plan on spending the entire day at the Convention. Why the local Hillary campaign did not send out a similar e-mail is a message that her supporters need to be asking.

The e-mail also provides a qualifier on not showing up on Saturday. It states “If you check-in or register as a delegate on Friday April 1^st it is not required for you to be present on Saturday April 2^nd.” (emphasis added). If people failed to show up on either Friday or Saturday, they clearly did not read the e-mail correctly.

At the check-in on either Friday night or Saturday morning, all of the delegates cast their ballots for the county caucus. If they didn’t show up on Saturday, that vote still counted. Because a second vote was never taken, they didn’t lose their vote. They lost the chance to realign with a different candidate, but, I doubt any Bernie supporters would have realigned. Less than 0.5% of Hillary’s supporters realigned on Saturday, so the impact on the vote was negligible.

Note that Clinton supporters are circulating the image of the e-mail with the second half of the sentence highlighted, but, not the first half:

https://twitter.com/retak47/status/716457586531377153

This gives the impression that there was a blanket dismissal of candidates. That is simply not true.

The second claim I’ve heard is that Bernie’s unelected alternates took slots that were reserved for Hillary’s delegates.

At the precinct caucuses, Clinton was awarded 4,889 delegates, while Sanders was awarded 4,026 delegates. For this above claim to be true, then Bernie would had to have received more than 4,026 votes on Saturday. He did not. He only received 2,958 votes (or 73.5% of his allotted number of delegates) in the initial balloting. He did receive additional votes following the realignment, but, those votes came from uncommitted delegates and Clinton delegates that decided to switch their allegience.  

From what I’ve read, seen, and heard, it is clear that when the Sanders campaign learned that a large number of delegate forms (these are forms the elected delegates and elected alternates filled out at the precinct caucuses) were missing, they took steps to find individuals to fill these slots. The local office of the Clinton campaign apparently did not take sufficient steps to account for these missing delegate forms.

This brings us back to the original question of why did Clinton lose the vote on Saturday? Plain and simply, her delegates didn’t show up. Less than ½ (2,390 of 4,889 slots or 48.9%) of Hillary’s delegates showed up on Saturday. In contrast nearly ¾ (2,958 of 4,026 or 73.5%) of Bernie’s delegates showed up on Saturday.

This loss falls squarely on the shoulders of the local campaign committee for Hillary Clinton. They failed to get the delegates to show up. They failed to take adequate steps to find replacement delegates lost with the lost delegate forms (something that impacted both campaigns). They failed to respond to the erroneous e-mail sent out by someone on March 30 (two days before the convention).

I also should note that I’ve seen a claim elsewhere that a Clinton supporter tried to motion for a second vote but was not recognized by the chair. There was very clearly a motion for a second vote that was recognized by the Clark County chair. The motion failed resoundingly. For that motion to pass, over ¾ of the people present would had to have agreed to it. At no point after the vote was announced did Clinton supporters comprise ¾ of the audience. I don’t think they were ever in the majority, much less, supermajority. There is no way any Sanders supporter was going to support a motion for a recount.

What are the implications of Saturday’s vote for the National Convention?

I don’t know. The totals we’ve been seeing for Clinton receiving 20 delegates and Sanders 15 delegates are all extrapolations. Nevada does not award a single Democratic delegate until the state convention. Because we don’t know how many delegates will show up at the state convention (in 2008, neither campaign had more than 80% of their delegates how up), we don’t know how the vote will turn out.

At www.thegreenpapers.com website, they cite two different extrapolations of the current information. One extrapolation (pushed by the Clinton campaign) awards 18 delegates to Clinton and 17 delegates to Sanders. The other extrapolation (pushed by the Sanders campaign) awards 16 delegates to Clinton and 19 delegates to Sanders.

The Clark County Democratic Party

The Clark County Democratic Party needs to get their act together. In 2008, they initially selected a hall for the convention that was too small, and had to delay the convention for a month to get a bigger hall. This year, they again selected too small of a convention hall. It was large enough to allow the event to proceed, but, there were not seats for every delegate that attended (and only 60% of the elected delegates actually attended). It is my understanding that the number of delegates is determined by the census (which takes place every 10 years), so they’ve known for some time how many delegates would be awarded at the precinct caucuses. They need to select a hall that can handle 80%+ of the awarded delegates. They also need to do a better job of communicating with attendees. There were apparently e-mails that were supposed to go to every delegate (or at least the elected ones), but, I did not receive. I suspect that the March 30^th e-mail was sent by the Clark County Democratic Party (I received identical e-mails on the 31^st and April 1^st that were lacking the statement about not showing up). That e-mail should never have gone out with that wording. That was a major error on the part of the Clark County Democratic Party, but, luckily, did not impact the vote.

The Caucus System

Everyone that I talked to on Saturday (regardless of which candidate they supported) was in favor of getting rid of the caucus system and returning to a primary system. The Republicans wanted to make the change in 2015, but, were blocked by Democrats. Hopefully, that attitude will change during the 2017 state congressional sessions. The Caucus system plain and simply disenfranchises voters at every step of the process. The window for attending a caucus is very narrow. If you work a job that requires you to be present while the caucus is taking place, you cannot vote.

If you showed up for the precinct caucuses, but, the delegates elected to represent you at the county convention failed to show up at the county convention, you were disenfranchised. If your delegate decides to switch their allegiance (which four Clinton delegates did), your vote was changed without your permission. With only 60% of the delegates actually showing up to the Clark County Convention that is a lot of people that were disenfranchised (basically 40% of the caucus goers in Clark County wasted their time).

The situation will be repeated at the State Convention. In 2008, less than ¾ of the delegates elected at the county conventions actually showed up at the state conventions.

Clark County Democratic Convention 2016 Part 2 of 3

In Part 2 of this account of my experiences at the Clark County (NV) Democratic Convention, I will describe the events that occurred on the day of the convention. Part 1 provides a brief summary of relevant events leading up to the convention.

I did not attend the Early Check In, but, instead showed up around 9:50 a.m. on Saturday April 2^nd to check in. There was a huge line outside the convention center. People in the line were patient as the line snaked around the convention center toward the entrance. Volunteers with both campaigns were handing out stickers and water bottles. After about a ½ an hour, several people wearing paraphernalia from the Sanders campaign came around saying that unelected alternative delegates were not needed and could go home. This would only have been true if there were enough elected delegates and elected alternative delegates to fill all 8,915 delegate slots. Once inside, we heard that wasn’t true. When we get to the vote totals it will be clear that this wasn’t true. Some of the people saying this were actually Sanders volunteers, but, they were getting their direction from someone else. I clearly saw one “volunteer” tell two others volunteers to announce that the unelected alternative delegates could go home. I don’t know if that individual is the person who started the rumor, or if he was simply following directions he was given. Inside, people with the Sanders campaign were clearly upset about this behavior.

Around 12:30 p.m., I finally got around to the check-in table. I showed them the form I had printed up after doing the on-line registration. I was given a form to fill out specifying which candidate I was their to support. That form ultimately represented the “First Ballot.” It wasn’t officially called the “first ballot,” but, that term will help people to understand how the voting process worked at the county convention. The people who did the early check-in on Friday filled out their “First Ballot” on Friday.

For most of the day, various candidates for offices were given the opportunity to talk to the assembled delegates for about 5 minutes each. The Nevada primary to determine candidates for the various offices will be held in June, so this potentially gave the delegates a chance to find out about the candidates. Unfortunately, the sound in the convention hall was horrible. If you weren’t in the front 1/3 of the hall, you couldn’t hear anything being said. Someone later told me that the speakers in the back portion of the hall were not turned out. They were visible, but, were not working.

The initial ballot results were supposed to be announced around 2 p.m., but, that didn’t happen. As time dragged on, rumors began to swirl and people began to get restless. It was at this point in time that I first heard about the removal of the chair of the credential committee earlier in the day (see link below). This was apparently happening while I was waiting in line (or possibly before I got there). 

Apparently more delegates showed up at the convention center than could be seated inside, so, they were transferred to an overflow area. I was unaware of this issue and the associated controversy until after the convention. I have no idea how the people in the overflow area voted on the motions presented inside the convention hall.

One of the rumors floating around is the convention was that it was clear that Bernie had won the County Caucus, and the Hillary Campaign was trying to delay the results until enough Bernie supporters had left that they could call for another vote and win the second ballot. Shortly after I heard this, I noticed that Bernie volunteers were located at the exit doors telling people wearing Bernie paraphernalia not to leave, and why they shouldn’t leave. I don’t know how long volunteers had been manning the doors, but, it was a smart move.

While we were waiting for the vote tallies, one representative from each candidate was given the opportunity to speak. Nina Turner, a former state senator from Ohio, spoke first as a representative for Bernie Sanders. She spent most of her time talking about Bernie’s political activism, from the 1960s to the present. I did not hear the name of the woman who was speaking on behalf of Hillary Clinton. She is a Nevada state senator. She spent most of her speech talking about Clinton’s biography.

Finally, around 4 p.m., (I think, the battery on my phone was dead, so I’m not positive what the actual time was) the “Final Results” were announced. I put “Final Results” in quotation marks because they weren’t final. These results are based upon what I’m calling the “First Ballot.” First the Clark County Chairman announced that there were 3,825 elected delegates present, 915 elected alternative delegates present, and 604 unelected alternative delegates present. We held a vote to seat all of the alternative delegates as official delegates, bringing the official number of delegates present to 5,344 (or 59.9% of all of delegates originally voted to the County Convention at the Precinct Caucus).

The Chairman then announced the “Final Results” which came out as 2,390 votes for Hillary, 2,958 votes for Bernie, and 9 undeclared delegates. I’m not sure how we got to 9 undeclared delegates, when there were only 3 undeclared delegates coming out of the Precinct caucuses. I don’t know if people either marked the wrong box by mistake or if several delegates were having second thoughts about who to support. When the vote was first announced (Clinton’s totals were given first, followed by Bernie’s totals), I could not hear anything after the two-thousand, nine hundred because of the roar from the crowd:

Someone in the crowd motioned for a recount (this would have been the second ballot), with the large Bernie crowd immediately creating an uproar over this motion. After the crowd quieted down, the Chairman called for a voice vote, noting that 75% of the attendees had to vote in favor of the motion for it to pass. Most of the Clinton supporters appeared to vote for the motion, but, all of the Sanders supporters (in the majority) voted against the motion.

The Chairman then said that the rules called for a one hour realignment period, during which time people could switch their support from one candidate to another, and, because the undeclared delegates comprised less than 15% of the total votes, they had to declare for one of the two candidates (this also would have been required if a third candidate had been represented and had received less than 15% of the vote). Because the convention was running several hours behind schedule, a motion was made to reduce this realignment period to 10 minutes. It passed almost unanimously. I heard a few nay votes, but, very few.

After about 15 minutes, the Chairman came back to the podium with updated results. Hillary received 2,386 votes, and Bernie received 2,964 votes, while there were still 7 undeclared delegates. Because of the seven undeclared delegates, another realignment period was needed. This upset nearly everyone in the crowed. Again, the realignment period was shortened to ten minutes. If people would have known who those seven undeclared delegates were, and if they were still present, I would have feared for their safety.

After about 20 minutes, the Chairman came back and said that there was no change to the ballots and those votes would be final. There was then a considerable delay while they calculated how many delegates each campaign would be sending to the State Convention. I have no idea why it took them so long to figure out the math for this issue. Finally, it was announced that Clinton would have 1,298 delegates going to the state convention and Sanders would have 1,613 delegates going to the state convention.

 The Chairman then said that if we were interested in becoming delegates to the state convention, we should go to the back of the hall where each campaign had a table and let them know we were interested. A number of us were confused, because, when we registered on-line and when we checked in at the convention, we were given the opportunity to declare our interest in being a state delegate. After a large group of us had gathered around the Sanders campaign table, someone came up and told us to go back to the front of the convention hall. The Sanders campaign told us that they were worried the Clinton campaign would try to call for another ballot, which we would not hear about because of where we were standing. For some reason, the Democratic Party did not turn on all of the speakers in the hall, which made it nearly impossible to hear what was being said in the back ½ of the hall. Most of us went back up front, but, I eventually wandered back to the back of the hall. The Sanders campaign apparently had enough volunteers to fill the delegate slots. At the Sanders campaign table, the volunteers were packing things up. At the Clinton table, I saw a dozen or so people frantically filling out forms. I’m guessing these forms were people volunteering to be delegates, but, I don’t know for sure.

We were told that the last act of business was to vote in the delegates to the state convention, and we had to wait for each campaign to provide the lists. This action took hours to occur. I suspect the delay was caused by the how the votes will be taken at the State Convention. According to www.thegreenpapers.com , two votes are taken at the State Convention to determine the delegates. (1) One vote is by congressional district, and a second vote is statewide. Because there are three congressional districts in Clark County, the staffers for the campaign were probably going through making sure they had adequate representation from each district.

During this waiting period, people were slowly trickling out of the convention center. It looked like the people leaving were dominated by Clinton supporters, with many Sanders supporters sticking around to make sure another vote would not be taken. Many of us had heard about that happening at one of the Iowa county caucuses, with the Clinton supporters repeatedly calling for revotes until enough Sanders supporters had left so they won the ballot.

While we were waiting for the campaigns to provide the lists of delegates, people were sitting or standing in small groups. The Sanders campaign brought pizza in for people (it was luke warm at best, but, still, it was pizza), which was nice of them. I don’t know how many pizzas were purchased, but, I saw several stacks with 10 or so boxes. A Hillary supporter started walking around the front part of the campaign hall carrying one a Hillary sign. After a while, several Bernie supporters started following him around. Then more Bernie supporters joined the parade until it turned into a Bernie conga line, which the person operating the sound system facilitated by playing music over the sound system. There were maybe a half dozen or so Clinton supporters in the parade, but, the vast majority of people were Sanders supporters of all ages. A brief video of this event can be seen below:

The convention was originally scheduled to end at 8 p.m., so, at 8 p.m., a crowd of Bernie supporters began to assemble in front of the podium and demand a vote on the delegates. Within 5 minutes, the chairman came forward to announce that the lists of delegates would be displayed on one of the screens, and, then we would have a final vote. This process was delayed when one of the delegates collapsed, and paramedics were called in. I don’t why the woman collapsed, but, suspect that she was dehydrated or exhausted. As the paramedics wheeled her past the podium, she gave use a thumbs up. Hopefully, she is fully recovered. If anyone has an update on this woman, feel free to provide it in the comments.

Finally, around 9:15 p.m. the remaining people in the hall voted to approve the lists of delegates and the gavel was laid down (indicating the end of the meeting).

The final post in this series will provide my final thoughts on the Convention, and, what factors played a role in the final vote

Clark County Democratic Convention - 2016 Part I of 3

This will be the first in a series of three posts talking about my experiences as a delegate for Bernie Sanders to the Clark County Democratic Convention.

This first post will concentrate upon events leading up to the County Convention, including a brief discussion of the precinct caucuses that took place in February. I will not try to explain how the precinct caucuses worked here. If people are interested, I can create a separate post talking about my experience at that event.

I was a delegate for Bernie Sanders at the Clark County (NV) Democratic Convention on Saturday. There has been a lot of discussion going around about what happened at the discussion and what the results mean for Bernie and the election in general. First off, this is my first time ever attending a caucus. Until 2012, my prior experience with presidential elections in the US has been entirely with primaries and general elections. This is also the first time I have ever attended a Democratic Party Convention at any level. This has been a learning experience for me, and I will probably learn more at the Nevada Democratic Convention next month.

I also should note that 2016 is only the second time that the Nevada Democratic Party has held caucuses. The first time was in 2008. Because Barack Obama was unopposed for the Democratic Nomination in 2012, there was no need for a caucus to be held. This inexperience can lead to problems that people could mistake for corruption. I saw evidence of both incompetence and, what I believe was corruption. I will try to make clear why I believe someone was attempting to corrupt the process when it is appropriate.

As most of you know, Nevada held their caucuses in February. In reality, those events should be referred to as the Precinct Caucuses because the county and state conventions are also considered to be caucuses (I believe that the same distinction can be made for Iowa and other states that hold caucuses). After the Precinct Caucuses were completed, all of the media outlets reported that Sec. Clinton had won 20 delegates, while Sen. Sanders won 15 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. This was wrong. The media should know this, but, they continue to misreport how delegates are awarded in caucus states. To my knowledge, no caucus state awards 100% of their National Delegates following the precinct caucuses. According to the www.thegreenpapers.com, “No national convention delegates are selected until the state convention at the 14-15 May State Convention.” From everything I have read this is correct. No delegates are awarded until the convention.

The Precinct Caucuses select delegates to the County Convention. For Clark County, Clinton was awarded 4,889 County Delegates, Sanders was awarded 4,026 County Delegates and 3 County Delegates were uncommitted (no other county in Nevada had more than 2,000 delegates selected for the county conventions, with most of the counties having less than 100 delegates at their respective county conventions). At the Precinct caucuses, elected delegates and elected alternative delegates were selected. In reality, we volunteered. The titles give the impression that there was a vote to determine who the delegates were. In reality, we all volunteered. There was no vote to determine who would be a delegate. We were giving a form to fill out with our personal information (name, phone number, address of residence, e-mail address) with one copy of the form going to the Democratic Party, one copy going to the candidate’s campaign, and one copy being taken by the delegate. 

I should note that at my precinct, things went relatively smoothly. Other than waiting for ½ an hour or so to get inside, I didn’t encounter any major problems. The Precinct chair was very professional and impartial, while both Precinct captains (one for Clinton and one for Sanders) were respectful of each other. The participants also were respectful towards each other. We had two uncommitted people attending, and when given the chance to try to persuade them to side with one candidate or the other, people talked positively about their own candidate without trashing the other candidate. One of the undecideds went over to the Clinton camp, while the other undecided individual remained undecided. 

If you read the news reports, other precincts ran into serious problems. As I did not witness any of those events first hand, I don't feel comfortable addressing them.

About ten days before the County Convention, I received an e-mail from the Clark County Democratic Party telling me how to register on-line for the convention, and recommending that I preregister by 6 a.m. Monday, March 28, 2016. On Tuesday, March 29, 2016, I attended an organizing event for people to volunteer for the Sanders campaign. This event was organized and run by volunteers associated with the Sanders campaign. Most of the time spent at this event was spent talking about how to help get at the vote for states that were yet to hold their primary elections/caucuses. At one point during this event, we split up into small groups. In my group was a young woman (18-21 yrs old) who mentioned that she had heard that the Clark County Democratic Party had lost over 2,000 of the delegate forms, and no one knew who those delegates were supposed to be. The Sanders campaign was scrambling to find people to fill those missing delegate slots. A representative of the Sanders campaign was present at this meeting, and near the end of the meeting said that they were looking for people to fill the roles of “unelected alternative delegates” at the convention because they were missing information on people. Probably 80% of the people attending this meeting already were either elected delegates or elected alternatives. But, the remaining people did volunteer to be unelected alternative delegates. At the County Convention on Saturday, the Clark County Democratic Party said that in some precincts, delegates were never selected or the forms were not turned in. Were forms lost, or was it a failure of the Precinct Chairs/Captains? I have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised if both events occurred. I also have no information on whether the loss/absence of delegate forms was dominated by forms associated with one candidate or another, or if both campaigns were hit equally hard by that screw-up.

I took the information on how to become an unelected alternative delegate with me, and shared it with some other Sanders supporters. 

On Thursday, March 31, I received an e-mail supposedly sent by the Clark County Democratic Party that mentioned an Early Check In at a local union hall on Friday evening, April 1. Near the top of the e-mail was the following sentence “If you check-in or register as a delegate on Friday April 1^st it is not required for you to be present at the convention on Saturday April 2^nd.” On Friday, I received additional emails from the Clark County Democratic Party that were near duplicates of the March 31^st e-mail, but, they were lacking the sentence about not needing to show up at on Saturday. The Clark County Democratic Party was telling people at the Early Check In that they needed to show up on Saturday, and said that they did not send the e-mail. I received an e-mail from the Sanders campaign telling me that I had to be there on Saturday irregardless of when I checked in. Below is a screen shot of the to portion of the e-mail. Note the first paragraph under 3785 E. Sunset Road.

There are several possibilities to explain this e-mail. (1) Someone "hacked" the Clark County Democratic Party account and sent out this e-mail with malicious intent. (2) Someone with the Clark County Democratic Party who didn't understand how the Convention actually worked sent it out by mistake. When you checked-in, you filled out your ballot for the election (I will refer to this in the next post as the "First Ballot.") The person may have been aware of this, and unaware of the possibility that additional ballots could occur.

I talked to several Clinton supporters on Saturday who received this e-mail. They brought the subject up, not me. One of them actually suggested it was the Sanders campaign who sent it out until I mentioned that I had also received the e-mail, and showed it to them. Because of this, I am inclined to believe that this email was sent via incompetence rather than maliciously. As I will argue in part 3, this e-mail had no impact on  the final vote.

This is the end of Part 1. In Part 2, I will talk about the convention itself.