LITTLE ROCK — The Democratic Party of Arkansas was wrong to bar a reporter from witnessing its disputed election of delegates to the party’s national convention, the state Democratic Party chairman said Monday.
A newspaper reporter was ejected Saturday morning from a room at Little Rock’s Robinson Center where the party was selecting state delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Party officials later announced that President Barack Obama captured all delegates from all four of the state’s congressional districts.
State Democratic Party Chairman Will Bond said to maintain the efficiency of the voting process, guests were removed from the voting rooms “to ensure that only those with the proper credentials were allowed to vote on delegates for the congressional district of which they were credentialed to vote.”
“However, this rule should not have been applied to members of the media, and we regret this miscommunication,” Bond said in a written statement Monday.
He said reporters were admitted to afternoon sessions and allowed to witness “the voting of pledged party leaders, at-large delegates and alternates.”
John Wolfe, a Chattanooga, Tenn., lawyer who received 42 percent of the vote against Obama in Arkansas’ May 22 Democratic presidential primary election, has filed a lawsuit challenging the state party’s delegate selection process. Wolfe claims the party has disenfranchised him and the Arkansans who voted for him by denying him any delegates to the national convention.
The party has said Wolfe was disqualified from receiving delegates because he did not follow all of the party’s rules, including a requirement that he submit a plan for ensuring representation of minority groups among his delegates and a requirement that he notify officials of his authorized representative in Arkansas.