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.