I was looking forward to participating in the Nevada Caucus held this past Saturday, Feb. 4th. It was an opportunity for my daughter, Tabitha to participate in her first election. To be sure we wouldn't miss out, we arrived at our location at 8:15 AM.
The check-in went smoothly and we were directed to proper classroom for our precint. We stepped inside and there were a few people already there. By the supposed 9:00 start time there were around 45 of us in total.
As we sat and watched the clock, many of us started to wonder when we were going to start. My good friend Steve Sanson, who is President of Veterans in Politics, was sitting behind me so we chatted as the time went by. 9:15, 9:30, 9:45 came and went. My daughter looked at me and said "Wasn't this sipposed to start at 9:00?" I replied "Yes" and told her to remember I told her there may be problems.
Well, 10:00 finally arrived and someone "In Charge" came into the room to help us get started. As we didn't have an "official" representative, we were told that we would need to elect one from the people in the room. This we did and it went smoothly. We then all needed to check-in to make sure that we were in the correct room and that the number of people in the room matched the number who had signed in.
We then had the opportunity to speak for our favorite Presidential candidate. After this, we all voted, the votes were counted and we were done. All this took about 45 minutes so we left at around 10:45. So far so good.
From what I heard later, most of the caucusing was done by Noon at most locations. It's just a matter of counting the votes and posting the results.
This is when things got a bit complicated with the Nevada GOP.
By 10:00 PM, a whole 12 hours AFTER most locations were done, we still didn't have the "Official" count. By around 4:00 AM, the count still wasn't done.
Is counting the voted really that difficult? My caucus was held at Arbor View High School. Each precinct was in a separate room. How hard is it for each precinct to tally the votes and bring the results to the person in charge who could then take each precint total and write it down on a sheet of paper and total the votes for all the precincts? This person would then take the sealed envelopes, alone with their total sheet, to the Republican Headquarters where someone there could take the caucus location "Total Sheet" and put the numbers on their master sheet and total all the caucus locations numbers.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, for some reason, that's not what happened. So here it was, 4:00 AM the following Sunday, and the vote totals were still not available.
Getting back to when we were sitting in the room waiting for the caucus to start, one discussion came up more than once from quite a few people. We need to have a Primary instead of the Caucus.
My neighbors were sitting in front of me and they agreed that Nevada needs to go to a Primary. Their reason was that their daughter was up in Reno and thus could not participate in the Caucus. If Nevada did a Primary, her daughter could have voted by mail.
I have to wonder how many others were in the same boat? How many others were there who didn't have transportation? How many others were there who don't know what a Caucus is and how and why this works?
I'd say quite a few.
Which is why I support Nevada switching to a Primary for Presidential candidates. We do this for State and local elections and everyone understands how this works.
Once elected to Nevada Assembly for District 13, I would support changing from a Caucus to a Primary. Let's keep things simple.
The check-in went smoothly and we were directed to proper classroom for our precint. We stepped inside and there were a few people already there. By the supposed 9:00 start time there were around 45 of us in total.
As we sat and watched the clock, many of us started to wonder when we were going to start. My good friend Steve Sanson, who is President of Veterans in Politics, was sitting behind me so we chatted as the time went by. 9:15, 9:30, 9:45 came and went. My daughter looked at me and said "Wasn't this sipposed to start at 9:00?" I replied "Yes" and told her to remember I told her there may be problems.
Well, 10:00 finally arrived and someone "In Charge" came into the room to help us get started. As we didn't have an "official" representative, we were told that we would need to elect one from the people in the room. This we did and it went smoothly. We then all needed to check-in to make sure that we were in the correct room and that the number of people in the room matched the number who had signed in.
We then had the opportunity to speak for our favorite Presidential candidate. After this, we all voted, the votes were counted and we were done. All this took about 45 minutes so we left at around 10:45. So far so good.
From what I heard later, most of the caucusing was done by Noon at most locations. It's just a matter of counting the votes and posting the results.
This is when things got a bit complicated with the Nevada GOP.
By 10:00 PM, a whole 12 hours AFTER most locations were done, we still didn't have the "Official" count. By around 4:00 AM, the count still wasn't done.
Is counting the voted really that difficult? My caucus was held at Arbor View High School. Each precinct was in a separate room. How hard is it for each precinct to tally the votes and bring the results to the person in charge who could then take each precint total and write it down on a sheet of paper and total the votes for all the precincts? This person would then take the sealed envelopes, alone with their total sheet, to the Republican Headquarters where someone there could take the caucus location "Total Sheet" and put the numbers on their master sheet and total all the caucus locations numbers.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, for some reason, that's not what happened. So here it was, 4:00 AM the following Sunday, and the vote totals were still not available.
Getting back to when we were sitting in the room waiting for the caucus to start, one discussion came up more than once from quite a few people. We need to have a Primary instead of the Caucus.
My neighbors were sitting in front of me and they agreed that Nevada needs to go to a Primary. Their reason was that their daughter was up in Reno and thus could not participate in the Caucus. If Nevada did a Primary, her daughter could have voted by mail.
I have to wonder how many others were in the same boat? How many others were there who didn't have transportation? How many others were there who don't know what a Caucus is and how and why this works?
I'd say quite a few.
Which is why I support Nevada switching to a Primary for Presidential candidates. We do this for State and local elections and everyone understands how this works.
Once elected to Nevada Assembly for District 13, I would support changing from a Caucus to a Primary. Let's keep things simple.
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