California’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be chosen Sunday as nearly 3,000 people collect at caucus sites to select the 241 who will win the golden ticket and fill the pledged seats in Denver this August.

The preamble to Sunday’s event was marked by a bit of controversy last week when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s campaigns threw out delegate applications because the campaigns wanted to make sure only their die-hard supporters were selected.

Obama’s campaign tossed nearly 900 applications while Clinton’s campaign dropped about 50 names from its prospective delegate list.
Clinton has stood her ground on the decision but Obama later regretted it, and at the last minute the campaign decided to allow anyone to run.

“I think we made a mistake on balance. And, I think the people in New York and the people in Chicago looked at each other and said this gut level exclusion is now what the campaign is about,” said Steve Westley, a co-chairman of Obama’s California campaign.

The California Democratic Party says the idea is not to exclude anyone from participating in the caucuses, it’s simply a matter of logistics.

“I think both campaigns looked at how many people they have coming. Can our volunteers facilitate this? In the end, I think there was caution but it will still be a record turnout of delegates as well as participants,” said California Democratic Party Chief Bob Mulholland.

Sunday’s caucuses are being held all over the state, and begin at 3 p.m. PT.

FOX News’ Casey Stegall contributed to this report.

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