Chaos Erupts at Nevada Dem Convention

Security ended up clearing the room
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 16, 2016 12:30 AM CDT
Chaos Erupts at Nevada Dem Convention
Thousands of people gather at the Paris casino in Las Vegas for the Nevada Democratic Convention on Saturday.   (Michelle Rindels)

The Nevada Democratic Convention turned into an unruly and unpredictable event, after tension with organizers led to some Bernie Sanders supporters throwing chairs and to security clearing the room, organizers said. Friction between Sanders' supporters and state Democratic Party leaders had flared throughout the day on Saturday. The convention was scheduled to end by 7pm and when it hadn't wrapped up by 10pm, authorities at the Paris Las Vegas casino informed party organizers they could no longer provide the security necessary to handle the crowd, the AP reports. The hostilities began when Sanders supporters accused state party leaders of putting them at a disadvantage, and they objected to procedural votes to approve the rules of the event on Saturday.

They also questioned a credentials committee's disqualification of 58 would-be Sanders delegates. State party officials said the would-be delegates didn't provide acceptable identification and did not meet the May 1 deadline to register as Democrats. "We were just trying to force the democratic process," Angie Morelli, an attendee elected to be a national delegate representing Sanders, tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Morelli isn't happy about how the event was handled. "That's not how you unite a party," she says. "They didn't care about giving us any voice whatsoever." After getting seven of the 12 delegate spots up for grabs at the convention, Clinton, who won the February caucuses, has a five-delegate advantage over Sanders in Nevada, 20 to his 15, and is expected to win a majority of the state's eight unpledged superdelegates. (More Election 2016 stories.)

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