For some local residents, the first step on the road to casting a vote for Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia starts at the Kanawha County Democratic Convention on Saturday at the Teamster Union Hall in South Charleston at 1:30 p.m..
At the county convention, 174 delegates, split evenly between men and women, will be chosen to attend the state convention on June 10 and 11.
"It's a festive, convention-style, red-white-and-blue atmosphere," said Elaine Harris, Kanawha County Democratic chairwoman. "People coming together to be energized and mobilized."
Any registered Democrat in Kanawha County is welcome to go to the convention. Once there, people will have the chance to fill out a form that says they want to run for delegate.
Kanawha County was awarded 174 delegates based on its percentage of the total statewide democratic votes in the 2012 gubernatorial election.
The Kanawha delegation will join a total of 1,526 delegates at the state convention in June.
West Virginia gets a total of 37 delegates at the Democratic National Convention.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, Sen. Joe Manchin, State Treasurer John Perdue, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant and four West Virginia Democratic National Committee members make up eight of the members of the West Virginia delegation.
Those eight people are considered "superdelegates" by the Democratic Party. That just means that they're the equivalent of free-agents at the Democratic National Convention and can vote for whichever candidate they like best, although some have already pledged their support to a candidate.
The rest of the West Virginia delegation is bound to a candidate based on the state's majority vote in the primary, on a proportional basis. If one candidate were to win 70 percent of the vote in West Virginia, he or she would be awarded 70 percent of the delegates.
At the Kanawha County Convention, potential delegates don't need to pledge themselves to one candidate, according to Harris.
However, once chosen, many of delegates will be tied to a candidate and will have start campaigning to get their names out to go to the national convention.
Kanawha County delegates will have a chance to be one of the seven congressional delegates that come out of Congressional District 2 (Kanawha County's congressional district) or one of the six at-large delegates, according to Curt Zickafoose, the executive director of the West Virginia Democratic Party.
If someone from Kanawha County holds elected office, he or she also has a chance of being one of the three pledged party leader delegates.
While the process can be complicated, Harris said that it's an important for people to participate.
"It's important to partake in a process that's part of our democracy," Harris said. "And to learn more about the democratic process."
In years past, both Harris and Zickafoose said that they saw a lot more young people attending the convention.
Harris said she hopes to see that continue this year. Plus, she added, there will be music.
"You've always got to have music," Harris said.
Reach Daniel Desrochers at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com,
304-348-4886 or on Twitter at
@drdesrochers.