Local police challenge Sanders' Montpelier rally crowd numbers

Controversy is swirling in the Green Mountain state over just how many people attended Bernie Sanders' first Vermont campaign rally for his 2020 presidential bid. 

Based on three photos from Sanders' May 25 event on the Statehouse lawn in Montpelier, the Burlington Free Press estimates 2,083 people were at the rally, more than 1,000 fewer than the Sanders’ campaign number.

The Sanders campaign said more than 3,200 people attended the campaign rally, adding the number was "verified" by Capitol Police Chief Matt Romei.

Montpelier Police said, “No more than 1,500” people were there.

Romei told the Free Press that at any given point when public safety officials were conducting headcounts they most they ever got was between 1,500 to 1,600 people.

The Saturday rally was Sanders' first stop in his home state and came three months after announcing his bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

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In 2015, Sanders kicked off his 2016 presidential bid with a rally that brought around 5,500 people to Burlington's Waterfront Park.

Estimating crowds

A spokesperson for Sanders' campaign stated in an email that they stationed people with mechanical clickers to count the number of people that came in. After that, the campaign tries to find an external source, like law enforcement to confirm the count for the media. 

Romei explained that public safety officials at the event used a snapshot to estimate crowd size. They took of picture while Sanders was speaking and then counted how many people were standing behind Sanders, he said.

Using that number, they created a “box” that was used to count the rest of the crowd giving public safety officials, including Capitol Police, a total of at most 1,600 people, Romei said.

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Romei added that the campaign’s 3,200 number “sounds reasonable” and Green Mountain Concert Services, which also provided security, tracked the number of people coming through the gate.

“I am saying that I have no reason to say the campaign is incorrect,” Romei stated in an email sent Tuesday. “We count for two entirely different reasons.”

However, a Green Mountain Concert Services employee said they weren’t tracking crowd numbers at the rally and only provided crowd management.

Montpelier Police Chief Tony Facos said he “strongly doubts” there were 3,200 people at the event.

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Based on the experience of his officers on the ground there was “nothing that would reflect” that number, Facos said.

“It was not a large group at all,” Facos said. “We were gearing up for three to seven thousand people.”

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Contact Sawyer Loftus at 802-660-1860 or sloftus@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @sawyerloftus18.