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human
ELI5: What happened with the Ron Paul delegates at the Republican convention

I don't mean the ruckus that resulted afterwards. I mean the process by which they could decide not to seat some delegates and seat others.
gpt
At the opening of any national convention, the first 'vote' from the assembled delegates is to adopt the 'rules' which govern how the convention will run and even set future rules for future contests. This is a hold over from the old days when state parties had all the power (now the national party does) and conventions actually decided nominations and not just elaborate 4 day TV commercials. 

The rules to be adopted this time included among other things, a refusal to recognise the delegates from the state of Maine (where Ron Paul delegates got the majority but there are a lot of legal shenanigans about who won what were), and also included rules for future primaries which would ban tactics used by the Ron Paul campaign (The new rules say the delegates have to match the popular vote count, what RP supporters had been doing was going to state conventions and caucuses, where thier turnout was better and using arcane rules to increase their delegate count, its all very complicated and state by state, but the ELI5 is: the RNC is trying to stop any future Ron Paul revolutions before they happen).

Now traditionally the 'rules vote' is such a boring and procedural and uncontroversial thing that they do it by something called a voice vote, the speaker asks for 'ayes' and 'nays' and the loudest side wins. Again usually everyone says aye, no one says nay, and they can move on with speeches and other, more tele friendly stuff.

This time, with the controversial changes in the rules, when they called the voice vote, the ayes and nays sounded exactly the same. What supposed to happen is they pull out paper and start actually counting votes from the delegates. But John Boener ignored this and stated the 'ayes' won. The Ron Paul delegates and supporters relized that the RNC was going to force them out of the party's rule making process and that this was the elite's way of stopping any grass roots movement in the GOP. So they flooded out of the convention and told as many reporters as possible about how the RNC was acting undemocratic and breaking their own rules and steamrolling regular party members. 

Combine this with a series of legal battles over the results of many of the state caucuses, where Ron Paul supporters believed that Mitt Romney friendly state parties stole delegates from their totals by again, breaking rules; and that Ron Paul was only offered a speaking slot if he would let the Romney campaign 'vet' (review and edit) his speech and give a full, unequivocal endorsement; and you've pretty much pissed off all the Ron Paul people.