I'll have more later but this had been one of the most poorly run embarrassing displays I've ever been to. The ELECTIONS are the worst run I've ever seen.
FULL POST:
First off, remember that this was majority ballot, NOT plurality. So to win you need 50% and the losers did NOT drop off. Everything started at 9am and the Convention adjourned at 5:00pm. The first ballot totals were not finalized until the 4 o'clock hour. It was a disgrace and every candidate who worked hard for every office deserve an apology from the 11th district committee and the Party in general. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the first ballot results were read. Then the problems emerged. The elections committee could not count correctly and were using the wrong math. As was told to me (and this could be wrong) that got the percentages against the amount of people in the room and not the votes cast for that ballot. The reason that is important is because we had paid delegates and unpaid delegates. Paid delegates voted for everything but unpaid delegates could only vote for National Convention delegates and Presidential Elector. Or, someone could just be interested in voting for certain people and leave the others blank, who knows? So each office should have been counted against the votes cast for that office, all of them should not have been compared to the number of people in the room (so to speak). So with all of this, things wen bonkers.
Terry Wear was originally announced as NOT having a majority when he clearly did. After the re-count (and the rumors she would back Mike Giere) Wear was announced the victor outright.
For State Central, originally David Ray was the only announced winner with over 50%. After the re-count both Keith Damon and Patsy Drain were announced as winners alongside David.
National delegate to the RNC is where things really went haywire. Originally it was announced that Brian Schoeneman, Ann Gentry, and James Lightweiss (a Ron Paul supported who graduated from Mason yesterday) were announced as the winners at over 50%. After the re-vote, Ann and James were confirmed winners but Brian dropped down to second to last and Brandon Jaisonowski, another young Ron Paul activist, shot up. In the end Schoeneman, Vogl, Hubbard, and Martin all took the floor and endorsed Geraldine Davies (sp?) and she won on the second ballot of Jaisonowski. But it wasn't overwhelming.
It took almost 5 hours to count the first ballot. The elections committee did not understand its own rules on how to count, and angry delegates were forced to stand outside at Oakton High School doing nothing. The entire event started with this bizarre women singing the National Anthem to a harp is what can only be described as a Shatner'd version of the anthem that was half sung and half spoken. This was incompetence at its highest level with people put in charge of things they should not have been. The only adult around was Matt Ames. I heard delegate after delegate saying , "I'm never doing this again." This was a demoralizing enterprise for everyone involved and I'm sure hurt our chances of getting volunteers because of this. All I could think of was, "imagine if we nominated our congressional candidate like this?" And the candidates who did run got screwed. Poor Brian was told he won the most votes and it turns out he was second to last! He deserves an apology and everyone who sat through this mess is owed one. Right now I'm apologizing to my wife for this.
This was bad for the party. This was not a fight of right vs. moderate, tea party/Ron Paul vs. Establishment, this was about complete and utter incompetence. Terry Wear has a big task ahead of him. The good news is that the people responsible for this were voted OUT today and overwhelmingly so. It's Terry job to fix this now. That is what gives me hope, is that those responsible are not gone. Good luck to everyone who won and ONWARD to victory in November!
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