We have reports from other caucuses where sample ballots were circulated with the names of candidates (Romney, Santorum) listed, but which actually had mostly Ron Paul delegates on the ballot. Some have been so blatant that the state committees are seriously considering throwing out the results because of the misleading nature. In Nevada, it simply appears that they took over all the party positions, which gave them the ability to vote their own people into the delegate slots
Since they have to vote for Romney anyway, Romney didn’t care. It sucks for the supporters of Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich who were active in state politics, who wanted a chance to go to a convention, who showed up at all the caucuses, got elected at the precinct level, and then got shut out at the state by the Ron Paul folks. But if they don’t like it, they should take back their party from the Paul people.
Apparently in Nevada and Maine, there were Romney people with Paul pins handing out fake delegate slates instructing Paul supporters to vote for those delegates. It has the Ron Paul logo on it, and a smattering of better known Paul delegates, but with the rest being for Romney. This is backed up with video evidence and photographs. They also, apparently, smuggled in a bunch of guests to add to the voice votes.
As for Paulite tactics, I think the simple truth of the matter is that a majority of Paul supporters are more enthusiastic and better organized to go caucus for their candidate than are the Romney people.
GIven that Paul people won 22 out of 25 delegates, it is hard to believe it was Romney’s team that was tricking people — he actually won 50% of the support in the original caucuses, so his team would have to be remarkably incompetent to actually cheat their way from 50% down to 12%.
Oddly, I read several reports here at FR that sounded exactly like your report, except it was Paul people passing around lists that were supposed to be Santorum and Gingrich lists, except most of the names were actually Paul delegates.
I watched one of the Maine videos that supposedly “showed” this. They had a “similar delegate list” which didn’t mention Ron Paul anywhere, and which followed a standard form for delegate lists, and happened to start with the Governor like Ron Paul’s list did. Because it was in the same “format” the video asserted it was a trick. Oddly, the Ron Paul list didn’t mention Ron Paul anywhere — which some would say was itself a trick to not let people know who the delegates were supporting.
The video then found some random guy passing out his own slate, and asserted with no evidence that the guy was a Romney supporter. The problem with this 3rd list was that it had Ron Paul people on it who hadn’t actually agreed that they wanted to go be delegates. Later, the woman making the video says someone nominated her from the floor, and she had to run out and decline.
No possibility existed in her mind that someone who knew her might think to nominate her, or that someone might have known some people he thought would be good nominees and pass out his own list.
And of course, for those who argue conspiracy (as you seem to be doing here), there is nothing in any video I’ve seen that precludes these fake lists actually being from the Ron Paul campaign, which they then report as being from other campaigns in order to cause trouble and get sympathy.
Of course, anybody can do anything at a convention, so it is possible that someone who wanted Romney to win, and who had heard about previous Paul lists at earlier conventions, might have decided to try payback. What is most unlikely is that Romney, having actually won the Nevada delegate votes, and therefore not needing to care about who actually went to the convention, would actually sanction fake lists, and then do it so badly that he lost the delegate fight anyway.