Understanding the Democratic nomination process is key to understanding why the Nevada freak out was so uncalled for.

It sometimes feels as if we live in a fact-free political world, one that thrives on emotion and controversy, rather than reasoned, evidence-based argument. We therefore want to remind people of the facts of the Democratic nomination process to help diffuse the emotion around Nevada’s convention this weekend. 

Democrats award delegates proportionally based on the results of roughly 500 distinct contests. Those 500 contests take place within 57 larger contests in the 50 states, plus D.C. Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the North Marianas and Democrats Aboard. Each of these contests is then divided into sub-groups, always by geographic region, usually by Congressional district but sometimes by another area.

So last night in Kentucky, there were seven different contests and eight different allocations of those contests. Because an even number of delegate were to be allocated based on the statewide total to get anything other than an even split would have required an eight-point victory. Thus the other six contests decided who “won” from a delegate perspective, the actual scoreboard metric. Clinton and Sanders split the delegates evenly in all the districts with an even number of delegates, Clinton won two districts with an odd number of delegates, while Sanders won one odd district, for an overall split of 28-27.

How many delegates each state and each district are given is based on a formula that rewards Democratic performance. Voting for Democrats is how a district or a state gets more delegates. This formula also has the effect of packing lots of delegates into a few districts because the Republican gerrymanders have created very Democratic districts. Kentucky’s 3^rd congressional district got more than twice the delegates of Kentucky’s 5^th, for example, because the 3^rd voted for President Obama twice, while the 5^th was one of his worst districts. When one adds up all the results from all these different sub-contests held across all the states, Hillary Clinton leads by 272 delegates for a simple reason: She got more votes in more places.

This is an important fact and essential to keep in mind when thinking about the controversy over Saturday’s Nevada convention. Let’s start at the beginning with the precinct caucuses on Feb. 20. Clinton won at the statewide level and therefore took more of both statewide buckets, each with an odd number of delegates, getting 3-2 and 4-3 splits. At the Congressional District level, she won the 1^st, an odd delegate district, and did well enough in the 4^th , a  six-delegate district, to be awarded a 4-2 split. This was good enough for a statewide delegate margin of 20-15. 

One of the odd things about caucuses is that they don’t actually award delegates. Instead, they award delegates to county conventions who then vote for delegates to the state convention, who then elect delegates to the national convention. Some confusion occurred over the second step in the process, Nevada’s county conventions, and Sanders managed to get more delegates at the largest and most important county convention in Clark County, than he had at the caucus levels. Per Nevada rules, the district level delegates are locked in, and thus this switch only affected the statewide delegate allocation. By voting for Sanders at the state convention, these delegates were supposed to give him a win. But at Saturday’s state convention, Clinton flipped a few delegates back, giving her an 18-17 lead, though it should be noted, not the 20-15 split she got at the precinct caucuses.

There’s no mystery about what happened at the state convention this weekend. Clinton’s state delegates did a great job of showing up and Sanders state level delegates did not. This is not shocking. One of the problems with bringing lots of new people into the process, as the Sanders campaign has done, is that some of them turn out to be flakey. In addition, new people, who are now spending hours upon hours on politics when they hadn’t before, are likely to be overly enthusiastic and have high expectations.

Having said that, it should be acknowledged that the process could have been handled better.  The rules that excluded more Sanders delegates than Clinton delegates, such as only registered Democrats could participate, were well spelled out. Still, maybe some rules should have been bent for comity’s sake.

There are two stubborn facts, however. The first is that the state reversal merely reinstated the precinct caucus result that reflected the will of the 80,000-plus Democrats who bothered to show up in February. (It probably should be the rule regardless that the caucus-goers’ preferences count, rather than whatever happens at the next steps.) The second fact is that at the most there’s a difference of two delegates – that’s right, all the fuss is about two delegates -- when Clinton has a lead of 272.  

Democracy has an unfortunate side effect of looking and feeling messy sometimes. Voter problems in Arizona, and to a lesser degree in New York, were outrageous, but overall the process has been transparent and fair. It is also important to remember that Democratic proportionality rules allow everyone to have their say and be heard, unlike the Republican rules that allow for a number of winner-take-all contests. Everyone on all sides just needs to be a bit more grown up about the process and realize that it comes to end. 

Given the internet, it is possible that nomination fights under these rules will often go the distance. Running out of money is less likely to be a problem now that a large number of small donors continue to give even as victory slips away. That means contests will be over long before they are “over.” This simply requires maturity and understanding.

It is also extremely important, and seemingly lost on many people, that you shouldn’t hound and attack super delegates unless and until they seem likely to overturn the will of the voters. It’s one thing to challenge the idea of super delegates; it’s totally another to make the lives of a state party chair or those in similar positions unbearable. They are often just volunteers, and so far they’ve done nothing to countervail the majority of voters.

We hope this clarifies the process of how a nominee gets picked. If there are questions about the rules, we are happy to answer them.