A very long, very good synopsis of what happened.
On April 2, Nevada held its County Convention. Being from Las Vegas, I was at the Clark County Convention — the largest one. By the way, there are lots of Rules for each of these stages. These Rules have been made available to read. These Rules also dictate things like credential requirements, decorum expectations, process, etc. They are convoluted and long but not onerous. Just boring. And supporters from both campaigns were on the Rules Committee. There was also a Platform. Again, both campaigns had representatives on this Committee. Again, the Platform was available to be read ahead of time. Again, it was long and boring. There were also publicized dates for any Delegate to come and offer changes to language that would be considered by the committee, including one meeting that was held literally one hour before the Convention started. Even if someone missed those meetings, they could petition a change if they could get 20% of the Delegates to sign and then got a 2/3 vote.
The main problems at County had to do with credential items. At this stage, there were 3 ways that you could be credentialed. As an Elected Delegate (Me!). As an Elected Alternate (which was someone who was made an official alternate at the precinct level). Or as an Unelected Alternate (which was someone who, supposedly, attended the February 20 caucus but was not named as a Delegate or Alternate). The genius of the Sanders campaign was how they recognized how Unelected Alternates could change the game.
Getting Delegates and Alternates to each stage of a Convention is a challenge of monumental proportions. There were nearly 9000 Delegate slots to fill in Clark County alone. Which means that 9000 people needed to give a full day to maintain the February 20 result. A well-organized campaign works the phones, uses e-mail, any tool at its disposal. Even still, the expectation is that vast numbers of people won’t show. Indeed, both campaigns probably only ended up with about a third of these people, which is why there was plenty of room for Alternates, both Elected and Unelected, to be seated. The Sanders campaign realized this, held a huge rally and just urged people to come. The Clinton campaign made the mistake of mainly focusing on Elected Delegates and Alternates. The result? Sanders took the County Convention by about 600 delegates. Yes, Clinton had a higher ceiling but when neither campaign reaches that ceiling, the one with the most votes wins.
But here’s where the Sanders campaign, and Shaun King, and USUNCUT and every other low information, highly inflammatory source failed its own followers. For one thing, this was not the end of the process. This merely determined the percentage of Delegates for the State Convention. Also, it turns out that 23 of Nevada’s 35 National Delegates were divided up based on the results of February 20. That meant that, even before the County Convention, Clinton had 13 Delegates secured compared to 10 for Sanders. This leaves only 12 Delegate slots to be decided based on percentages at the State Convention. Sanders now had the advantage as the wins in Clark County and in other counties had shifted the numbers. On February 20, it was predicted that Clinton would take 20 Delegates to the National Convention while Sanders would have 15. After the County Conventions, the prediction shifted. Sanders would gain 2 to 17 and Clinton would lose 2 and be at 18. Nevada hadn’t flipped, Sanders had just gained an advantage in the 12 spots that were still to be determined.
https://medium.com/mamajeanab/the-nevada-state-democratic-convention-c55076db43a#.cdjkzoey0
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