US-VOTE-DEMOCRATS-CONVENTION

Supporters of Bernie Sanders shout as they walk out of the convention during the roll call on Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 26, 2016.

(Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

As Bernie Sanders bellowed out a request for delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia to appoint Hillary Clinton the party's official presidential nominee, nearly half of the Oregon delegation braced itself to do just the opposite.

Gregory McKelvey, an Oregon State graduate and local activist, tied a black cloth around his mouth as a gag and, along with all but two or three of Sanders' pledged delegates from the Beaver State, walked out of the convention.

They were protesting Clinton's nomination as well as recently leaked evidence that the Democratic National Committee was trying to undermine the Sanders campaign during the primaries.

One of the state's unbound superdelegates, Congressman Peter DeFazio, was staging a similar protest of his own. He decided to sit out the convention altogether as a show of his disdain for the superdelegate system.

"I do not support the practice of using superdelegates in the Democratic Party primary, and believe the superdelegate system to be undemocratic," DeFazio told The Associated Press in a statement.

Right up until Sanders called for the Democratic party to make Clinton its nominee on the convention floor, McKelvey and his fellow supporters were holding out hope that the Vermont senator would somehow come away from Philadelphia with the nomination.

"We've been dealing with the possibility that this would be the case for some time," McKelvey told The Oregonian/OregonLive, "that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee."

Oregon delegates walk out wearing black gags pic.twitter.com/Tndw1E6Lz7 — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 26, 2016

The OSU grad says those who walked out had been turned off by the way the convention had been run. McKelvey said that on Monday, as Sanders supporters prepared for a speech from the Vermont senator, Democratic party officials rounded up the delegation's campaign signs.

It wasn't until Sanders was about to take the stage that convention personnel began handing out their own signs. McKelvey suspects the earlier confiscation was meant to show party unity in front of television cameras.

It was a blunt reminder of the Democratic party's desire to "crown" Clinton, according to McKelvey and several other Sanders supporters. The DNC email leak late last week, in which then-party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was found to express her disdain for the Sanders campaign, fed that fire.

"The emails already confirm what we thought in the first place," McKelvey said.

But it was Sanders's call to nominate Clinton on the convention floor that led his supporters to set their sights on the media tent outside of the Wells Fargo Center. What was supposed to be a short walkout to protest Clinton's nomination turned into a 90-minute affair when police showed up to barricade the protestors inside.

Another one of the convention walk-outs, Colby Clipston, told the AP that many Oregon protesters remained gagged as they sat in the media tent.

McKelvey was hoping to get back inside the convention in time to watch speeches from Mothers of the Movement -- a group composed of black mothers, including those of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland, whose children were killed by police. But that didn't happen.

Because police barricaded protesters inside the media tent, McKelvey said, they missed the speeches.

Many of the walkout's supporters on Twitter have since voiced their disdain for the Democratic party, going so far as to change their voter registration. They've been rallying around the #DemExit hashtag on twitter.

During #DemExit tom'w (actually I already did last week), We should do this: tweet images of our updated voter reg https://t.co/8cR8KL3o2l — George John (@A2ndEnding) July 27, 2016

Can we get #DemExit trending Man I can't get away from this party fast enough — Grassroots 4 Bernie 🗣 (@GrassrootsJill) July 27, 2016

But McKelvey said he's not sure what he's doing in November. Well, except for one thing.

"My number one priority is to make sure Donald Trump is not the president," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

--Eder Campuzano

503.221.4344

@edercampuzano

ecampuzano@oregonian.com