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 1st
it is not required for you to be present on Saturday April 2nd.”
(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:
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 30th
e-mail was sent by the Clark County Democratic Party (I received identical
e-mails on the 31st and April 1st 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.
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