This year's national convention took place in Washington, DC. The main business sessions took place over three days, Friday through Sunday, 24-26 May. Of the delegates representing California, ten were from Santa Clara County.

Convention business got off to a slow start, with most of the first day taken up resolving controversies relating to credentials, and then making amendments to the agenda. There were also several speakers scheduled during times that would have in most years been devoted to formal business, or to debate sessions connected with formal business. As a result of all that, the delegates never had a chance to deal with two items of business that are typically significant parts of a national convention: consideration of the reports of the Bylaws Committee and Platform Committee. (Note that this means there were no changes in the Platform – nothing added or deleted.)

A debate among six candidates for our presidential nomination was held Saturday morning in the main hall. There was also a debate, on Friday evening, between two of the declared candidates for Vice President, but neither of them ended up getting the nomination.

In elections for national LP leadership, Angela McArdle was re-elected as Chair, Mark Rutherford was elected as Vice Chair, Caryn Ann Harlos was re-elected as Secretary, and Bill Redpath was elected as Treasurer. The five At-Large positions on the LNC were also filled, and regional representatives for some of the LNC regions were selected during the convention by the delegates from those states. (The representative for California, which is a one-state region, had already been elected at our state convention.)

The formal nominating speeches and voting to decide on our presidential candidate took place on Sunday, This process started with 10 candidates on the ballot (though write-in votes were also allowed), In addition to nine Libertarians who had been campaigning around the country, there was a nomination for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who apparently joined the party in the hope of receiving our nomination for ballot access purposes. There was also an attempt to nominate Donald Trump, but he was ruled not eligible.

With four candidates eliminated on the first round of balloting (including Kennedy, who received only 2.07% of the votes), the process continued with the elimination of the lowest vote-getter in each round, leaving just three on the ballot for the fifth round: Michael Rectenwald, Chase Oliver, and Mike ter Maat. With just Rectenwald and Oliver remaining it was expected that the sixth round would give us our nominee, but although Oliver had the most votes (423, vs. 382 for Rectenwald) this was not a majority of all votes cast because "None of the Above" received more than 5%. In the seventh round, Oliver prevailed over surprisingly strong support for NOTA – which would have meant having no candidate for President at all this year.

There were five candidates on the first ballot for our nomination for Vice President, including Freddie Clegg from right here in Santa Clara County, With just two remaining for the second ballot, Mike ter Maat (51.31%) won against Clint Russell (47.03%)

With all of these ballots for President and Vice President, along with three of the officer positions and the LNC at-large positions, taking place on Sunday, along with an afternoon keynote address by Ron Paul, business continued late into the evening, running right through the time when the "gala" dinner was supposed to take place. Some who had paid for that meal went and brought back their food in take-out containers, while boxes of pizza started appearing in various parts of the hall.

The convention finally adjourned at 12:57am.