For Immediate Release Contact: Kevin Bailey
April 1st, 2023 kevin@baileyfordelegate.com
Kevin Bailey Thanks 192 Appomattox Voters At Mass Meeting
Attendees Chose Between Alternatives Choosing 255 Voting Delegates
Friday, the Appomattox Republican Mass Meeting met to fulfill the requirement to choose 255 convention delegates from among the hundreds who signed up to attend.
“Whether you supported me or one of my opponents, thank you to the hundreds of Appomattox residents who attended the Mass Meeting Friday,” said Kevin Bailey, one of three candidates for the House of Delegates. “This incredible turnout showed how much enthusiasm there is for the principles embodied in our Virginia Republican Creed. The only downside to so many people showing up is that some had to be left off the list to abide by the 255 limit, but we hope everyone who signed up will come to the nominating convention on May 20th.”
Bailey Campaign Summary of Mass Meeting and Delegate Selection
Because very few are familiar with the rules for mass meetings and conventions, an option that will not be available after this year, the campaign compiled the following summary of how the process played out:
Kevin Bailey was the big winner of the night with roughly 90 percent of 192 credentialed voters at the meeting supporting his preferred candidate for Chair of the meeting, with the remainder backing the choice of the other two candidates – Jennie Wood and Tom Garrett. The closest vote of the evening still showed overwhelming majority support, with 42 of the 192 voters supporting “Proposal 3” below supported by Wood and Garrett, while the remainder supported an alphabetical list circulated and proposed by Bailey supporters (Proposal 2 below).
The requirement that the list be cut down to 255, which had to be done by one method or another (see below), was incorrectly described by Bailey’s opponents as “slating,” a term that actually applies to a divisive practice used in a similar meeting in Appomattox in 2011, and elsewhere, before being banned by the Republican Party of Virginia.
In that mass meeting in 2011, a vote was taken to prevent many who signed up to be a delegate from being chosen, even though Appomattox’s limit was high enough to have allowed many more delegates to attend and vote at the convention. Friday, the maximum number of delegates allowed – 255 – were in fact allowed, and the others who pre-filed are allowed to attend the convention as alternates. In summary, in 2011, delegates were rejected even though there were enough spots for them; on Friday, the maximum number of spots – 255 – were filled, no one was rejected since they will be allowed to attend the convention as alternates.
Several ideas were proposed to reach the limit of 255:
Proposal 1 – Relegate only Bailey supporters to the alternate list (discussed but not formally proposed as a motion).
Once the pre-file deadline passed and it was known that more than 255 delegates had applied, the first proposal to cut the list down to 255 was floated by Appomattox GOP Chair Karen Angulo. She proposed to credential delegates in order of receipt. The Bailey campaign was the last campaign to submit their delegate pre-file forms, turning in 285 forms before the deadline. Angulo’s proposal would have relegated only Bailey’s supporters to the alternate list. For obvious reasons, the Bailey campaign opposed this proposal.
With a huge majority of the 285 who signed up supporting Bailey, the campaign began to call through the list to see which delegates thought they could attend the convention; the campaign then asked the Chair, who is a known supporter of one of Bailey’s opponents, if she could coordinate with all of the campaigns to provide the names of everyone who pre-filed in order to produce a combined list of 255. The campaign also asked if a meeting could be held the day before the convention for the same purpose. Those requests were denied. The Bailey campaign texted a member of an opposing campaign the day before the mass meeting, and again Friday morning, to ask if they could produce a list of delegates they would like added to the list – which would have required the Bailey campaign to remove more of their own supporters off the list of 255. Although the opposing campaign was asked to provide a list by 10 AM Friday, the Bailey campaign waited until 2 PM before finalizing an alphabetical list of the only names they had, listing 255 as delegates and the only other 30 known names as alternates.
Proposal 2 – Alphabetical lists distributed to all attendees, proposed by Nominations Committee and approved by all but 42 of the 192 attendees.
To be transparent, the Bailey campaign then provided the list in alphabetical form to everyone attending the Mass Meeting on Friday to see if they and other members they knew were on the list. One person asked that three names of people who supported an opposing campaign could be added to the list; the Bailey campaign did so.
It was ultimately this list of the 255 names provided in alphabetical order – amended to include the three individuals who supported the opposing campaign – that was proposed by the Nominations Committee and approved by all but 42 of the 192 voting members present.
Proposal 3 – Eliminate people not in attendance and replace them with people in attendance Friday (supported by just 42 of the 192 voting attendees).
The Chair first allowed consideration of a motion by those opposing Bailey that people not at Friday’s meeting be taken off the list of 255 and replaced by people present Friday night. In some mass meetings, the rules (call) announcing the meeting requires that those who want to attend the convention attend the mass meeting, but that was not a requirement this year in Appomattox. The Bailey campaign felt it was unfair to tell dozens of people who were told they only had to submit a pre-file form to come May 20th that they were not included as delegates because the rules were changed at the meeting. In all, 42 of the 192 eligible voters supported the proposal to remove people not at the meeting and replacing them with people in attendance.
While the 255 selected are the voting delegates, anyone else who signed up is an automatic alternate to the convention who can still attend; Based on the typical percentage of delegates who end up not being able to attend, it is likely many or all alternates will be allowed to vote in their place.