Applicants for state Democratic board accuse party officials of not sharing deadline information

Eight people seeking election to the Nevada State Democratic Party executive board accuse party officials of not revealing an important change in application deadlines, barring them from running in the state party convention Saturday.

Robert Kern, the group’s attorney, said his clients were left out of the loop because they weren’t part of an inner circle that “didn’t want outsiders to be taking power in the party.”

“According to email records received from the (Bernie) Sanders campaign, of the 2,638 email invitations sent out to delegates with the link to the rules, only 476 (18 percent) were received after the Amended Rules were posted,” the lawsuit reads. “This means that the majority of delegates either had the wrong deadline or were not informed of the deadline.”

Sanders, I-Vt., is running against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The first set of election rules drafted by the state party was emailed to party members beginning April 9 and listed the application filing deadline as April 29. That deadline was “quietly changed” a week later and moved up to April 25, according to the lawsuit.

“They posted the new rules to an obscure part of their website, without indicating there had been a change, or what the deadline now was,” Kern wrote. “The only way to find this posting was through a link in an email that was sent out to delegates over a week prior to the creation of the new deadline.”

Anyone who used the link before that email was sent found either the old rules or nothing at all, the lawsuit alleges. No one had any reason to know to check back for a change in the filing deadline.

“Due to this failure of communication,” several applicants sent in their nomination forms after the new deadline, the lawsuit said. “All were rejected.”

The lawsuit lists the Nevada State Democratic Party with party Chairwoman Roberta Lange and Executive Director Zach Zaragoza because the pair helped make the decision to reject applications filed between April 25 and April 29.

In a statement, the Nevada State Democratic Party said it has a transparent caucus process and called the lawsuit an “unnecessary distraction.”

“This lawsuit comes from disgruntled activists who have chosen disruption over unity, and who confused and misinformed their own supporters about an internal party election nominating deadline,” the Nevada State Democratic Party said in a statement. “It is an unnecessary distraction from our shared goals as Democrats, as well as a disservice to Sanders’ campaign, which has energized young voters and focused on the issues.”

The deadline was posted on its website on April 17 and emailed to state convention delegates and alternates the next day, the party said. A Sanders supporter on the executive board improperly shared an earlier draft of convention rules with the April 29 deadline, which was changed to April 25 with the board’s strong approval to give candidates for party leadership positions more time to campaign, the party said.

Kern’s clients seek to become national committeemen, executive board members and central committee members, all positions that will be elected at the Nevada State Democratic Convention.

Because the convention is Saturday, just days after the complaint was filed on Monday, there will not be time for a full trial, Kern said. The eight plaintiffs are seeking an injunction, which would order the state party to allow the candidates who filed their applications before April 29 to be on the ballot this weekend.

The preliminary injunction will be heard by a district judge at 10 a.m. Friday.

Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283. Follow @lauxkimber on Twitter.