The convention floor is clear and delegates have disbursed to the various parties – all of which started three hours late.

Before the final speaker came out, convention chair Beth Edmonds announced the final delegate tally – 15 delegates from Maine will represent Barack Obama in Denver, and nine will represent Hillary Clinton. The results of all the other votes – for national delegate slots and DNC members – will be announced tomorrow.

The Democratic Convention appeared to be running smoothly up until lunchtime, when chaos erupted. At that point counties broke off into caucuses where voting was to take place on national delegates, presidential electors, state committee slots and DNC positions.

It was revealed at this point that they couldn’t begin, because there were vacant delegate slots, and a room full of alternates wondering why they weren’t being upgraded. There had been a mix-up in the lists, and convention officials had been going off a list of delegates that had signed up at the caucuses instead of the list of delegates that had checked in at the convention.

The county caucuses should have started at noon. They were already running late because of delays in the morning proceedings.

Delegates waited around for hours as the Credentials Committee got the alternates seated, filling some slots by random selection. County caucuses got underway just after 3:00.

Congressional candidates went on at about 6:30. Ethan Strimling was mad. Adam Cote was sincere. Michael Brennan talked about education. Mark Lawrence talked about impeaching President Bush and the Constitution. Steven Meister talked about health care. Chellie Pingree talked about her accomplishments.

Up next were Senate candidates Tom Ledue and Tom Allen, both had a half hour and touched on issues. Ledue talked about the need for a new direction, new faces and new leadership. Allen differentiated himself from Sen. Susan Collins on a myriad of issues.

At 9:30 p.m. – three and a half hours past his scheduled start time -- Keynote speaker U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and assistant majority leader in the U.S. Senate, took the stage. At this point, the crowd was about half that had been there earlier.

Durbin talked about Allen, and urged Democrats to support him. The Senate needs a filibuster proof majority next year, he said. He talked about Barack Obama, his colleague in the Senate from Illinois. He talked about his legislation for publically financed Congressional elections, and praised Maine for its Clean Elections system.

PolitickerME lucked out and got a good seat for these speeches and was able to catch them all on video. It will take some time to sort and edit, but they will be up soon along with more detailed summaries.

County caucuses convene at 8:30 a.m. and the full convention will come to order at 10:30 to finish discussing the party platform, elect delegates and some other party business.