Posted on 01/19/2008 4:15:04 AM PST by I'll be your Huckleberry
Jan. 19, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
THE NEVADA CAUCUS: WHAT'S ON THE LINE Groundwork laid months ago for state's upstart caucus to be put to test today
By MOLLY BALL
REVIEW-JOURNAL
This is your only chance to have a say in whom the presidential candidates will be. Presidential candidates will not be on the ballot in Nevada's regularly scheduled August primary.
Today's caucuses are not Nevada's first, they are just the first ones to be a big deal.
Nevada Democrats have had caucuses for decades, but they were small affairs and usually occurred after the nominee already had been chosen by other states. Nevada Republicans didn't have a presidential nomination contest at all, only county and state party conventions where delegates were chosen.
The difference this time is that the caucuses are in January, making Nevada one of the first states to weigh in and giving the state more influence as a result. Both parties' nominations appear up for grabs, with multiple Democrats and Republicans still in contention.
Nevada is divided into more than 1,700 precincts, each of which will meet separately to select delegates. The number of delegates assigned to each precinct follows a formula based on the number of registered party members.
The Democratic caucuses will be held at more than 500 locations across the state, more locations than there were polling places in the 2006 election. Some locations will have multiple precincts. For example, several precincts might meet in different classrooms at a school.
The Democrats allow same-day registration for the caucus. If you are eligible to vote but have not registered, you can go to your precinct's site, fill out a voter registration form, and participate in the caucus. To find the correct location, enter your address in the caucus locator at www.nvdemscaucus.com or call 702-737-8683.
The Democrats also have special precincts for voters who work on or near the Strip. These precincts became the subject of controversy this week when a lawsuit sought to wipe them out, contending they were unfair. But a judge gave the precincts the OK on Thursday.
The at-large precincts are located in the convention areas of the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Flamingo Las Vegas, Luxor, The Mirage, Paris Las Vegas, New York-New York, Rio and Wynn Las Vegas.
You must show a work ID for a business within 21/2 miles of the Strip -- it doesn't have to be one of the hotels where the caucuses are -- and you have to sign a form swearing that you are scheduled to work within an hour of the caucus, which is expected to last more than an hour.
Doors close at 11:30 a.m. Anyone who arrives after that will be turned away.
The Republicans do not have special precincts for workers. They meet at more than 100 locations. The Republicans require voter registration 30 days in advance. If you have been a registered Republican since Dec. 19, look up your caucus location at www.nvgopcaucus.com or by calling 702-258-9182. Doors close at 9:10 a.m.
The Democratic and Republican caucuses are modeled after Iowa's traditional precinct caucuses, which were held on Jan. 3. The parties follow different models.
Democrats assemble into groups, one for each candidate. You can caucus for any candidate; there is no ballot. Once the groups are assembled, some of them will be too small to get a delegate, so they will split up and join other groups or go home. After the groups re-assemble, each group gets a portion of the total delegates allocated to that precinct.
If you don't like your choices, you can caucus for "uncommitted." That's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to do in his hometown of Searchlight, so as to remain neutral.
At most precincts, a candidate must get 15 percent of total attendance to earn a delegate, or be "viable." Each precinct will have a trained volunteer, the precinct chair, running the show, so anyone who is confused about the process shouldn't worry.
Each campaign gets to sign off on the final results so there is no disagreement. The precinct chair then calls in to an automated system, punching in codes for the precinct and following prompts to enter delegate numbers.
The automated system, which party officials say is secure, feeds into the Democratic Party's computers. Results will start appearing, precinct by precinct, on the www.nvdemscaucus.com Web site as they come in. The party expects to have the delegate counts in by 2 p.m. Turnout numbers will come in a little while later.
The delegates elected in the caucus will go on to county conventions, where they will elect delegates to the state Democratic Convention, who will elect delegates to the national Democratic Convention scheduled for August in Denver. The caucus technically is nonbinding, meaning the delegates who are elected can decide to support a different candidate than the one they caucused for.
The Republicans also are electing delegates to go to county conventions and elect state Republican Convention delegates who will elect Republican National Convention delegates. That convention is scheduled for September in St. Paul, Minn.
But the Republicans, both here and in Iowa, elect delegates separately from voting on presidential contenders. After they choose delegates in a straightforward election process, they fill out secret ballots stating their presidential choice. The party had hoped to use voting machines, but that didn't work out and paper ballots will instead be used.
There will be seven candidates on the ballot, based on criteria approved by the state party: Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter.
The caucus locations will collect results for all the precincts at each location, then phone the results in to Nevada Republican Party headquarters. The raw vote totals will be shown on the www.nvgopcaucus.com Web site as they come in. Republicans expect to have the votes counted by 1 p.m.
Since the delegates elected at the Republican caucus aren't necessarily committed to a candidate at all, the Republican contest is also technically nonbinding.
Despite their different formats, both contests require campaigns to organize heavily at a grass-roots level if they want to win, since candidates' supporters have to be at a certain place at a certain time.
The Republican caucus, which is a smaller-scale effort than the Democrats' and hasn't attracted as much candidate attention, hit a few snags, but party officials say the problems have been worked out.
About 20 percent of registered Republicans in Washoe County were sent postcards with the wrong caucus location because of "flawed data," Republican Caucus Director Hans Gullickson said. All those affected were sent new, corrected postcards and received a phone call, he said.
The party also decided to allow provisional voting for people who say they are registered Republicans but can't be found on a particular location's voter rolls, Gullickson said. Those ballots will be counted only after they have been verified.
"On the off-chance that somebody inadvertently goes to the wrong caucus location, we still want them to participate," he said. Such voters will have to sign an affidavit, he said.
Gullickson declined to say how many ballots were printed, which would indicate how much turnout the Republicans are expecting. "Enough to make sure everybody who attends has a ballot," he said.
Democratic turnout is expected to be larger than the Republicans' but also is a major uncertainty.
Estimates range from 30,000 to 100,000. The high end would represent 25 percent of registered Nevada Democrats, a high number even for a primary election, which is easier to participate in than a caucus. In the next couple of days, the political limelight currently on Nevada will have moved on. Campaign offices will be abandoned, staffers evacuated.
Those who have been working on the effort in Nevada for more than a year can hardly believe it's finally happening, but are happy with the results of an upstart caucus that many were reluctant to take seriously until it was suddenly at the center of the storm.
"It's turning out better than we ever hoped," said Kirsten Searer, deputy executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party. "It's clear that we are going to be critical in this process. This is a race that's too close to call, and the eyes of the world are on our state."
Prior Nevada Caucus Comments - including detailed explanations of the Republican polls snafu.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1951115/posts
It is 4:28 am in Carson City, it is 21 degrees and the skies are clear.
We will be meeting at 8:30 and voting at 9:00 AM.
What does your screen name signify?
We are over here.
Famous quote from a famous movie.
See the old thread in post #1.
Vote for Duncan Hunter...
:)
Well, let's all dance around Maypole!
Show Time
The country is almost evenly divided, at this point in our lives, between the cowards, degenerates and traitors and the regular people who try to do what’s best for their country and family.
Nevada is no different.
Good luck and let us know how your precinct goes.
With Nevada being only the 4th state out of 50, I would say so.............
Kinda like saying after the first 3 minutes of the Super Bowl game with no score "...well Terry, looks like this game is still up for grabs."
I realize that. No aspersions on the great State of Nevada, but to the many dolts who cast votes for the effective end of this country. Both in Nevada and elsewhere.
Can you say personal frustration?
Constituent to politician ... "Brother, can you spare a dime?" ... Politician ... "Be patient plebe, we're running the printing press at full speed."
I copy that
Great graphic, thank you.
My impression is that Fred will do much better and that Ron Paul will do very well - I have seen no signs of that type of Hunter support.
Who knows at this point.
It is time to get the espresso maker going and this show on the road, I will check in as soon as I can.
Wow, I hope that blog isn’t directly related to the McCain campaign, because he was REALLY upset when he was accused of using the b-word about Hillary, and that graphic on the right screams it.
Funny advertisement, but shows why some people think Huckabee and McCain are working together.
Huckabee vouches for McCain’s conservative credentials (like he’d know), and McCains apparently trusts every word Huckabee says, because he’s using him as a spokesperson.
You probably should note that the poll is an online poll, not an actual scientific poll. But still, your man did a good job getting his people to call.
You've got that right!
It will be great when they are no longer on the endangered species list. Then perhaps we'll be able to get $5.00 an ear bounty, like they did with coyotes years ago.
“Famous quote from a famous movie.”
The only thing I know close to your screen name was a line from Tombstone, where Doc Holliday sates, “I’m your huckleberry”.
The problem with an online poll is that you have no way to do a representative sample.
Somebody finds the link, and they send e-mails to everybody on their list, and suddenly you have 200 votes for one candidate.
That’s assuming some guy didn’t simply spoof Ip addresses and vote 200 times from his basement.
Hunter has been working Nevada, and it’s a caucus, so it’s possible he will do better than he’s done elsewhere, but I would not expect him to do that well.
Real polls aren’t without difficulty, because it is not easy to determine that you have a representative sample. Generally you have to ask multiple questions of a non-related nature, and use that and demographic information to adjust your results to reflect a “known distribution”.
For example, and I don’t KNOW that this was a control question, but it seems to be, most of the zogby internet polls (which are targetted but to whoever wants to show up) ask if you shop at Walmart.
The idea is that people don’t generally change their shopping habits quickly. So on ANY survey, they should get the same answer to that question. When they don’t, they can adjust the weighting of their answers so that the Walmart question matches previous polls.
That’s not the only control, but if you have enough controls, and things ARE static, those controls can be used by a computer program to adjust the poll.
LOL
How often perceived reality can supplant the historical record.
While you are factually accurate - many people, myself included, have replaced the original verbiage with the more pleasing phrase that I use. Don’t know why.
However, about once a year someone with a memory for details will point out the inconsistency.
It is what it is....
The goal of scientific polls is to be as accurate as possible, in general.
It’s very difficult, particularly in primaries.
By and large, an average of various polls in the immediate days leading up to a primary is going to be reasonably accurate, despite the claims repeatedly made here, based on wishful thinking.
Yep, and the same Nevada whose Republican Assembly endorsed Duncan Hunter with 80% of the vote.
Ping!
Looks like Dennis did some good for himself defending free speech for all. Notice that 3 of the top 4 were blacked out of the last few debates. I hope the American people are revolting to that arrogant knuckleheaded decision!
Caution:
This on-line poll will in no way reflect actual votes cast.
See my post #15?
Seven thirty here....doors open at nine.
This should go fairly quickly. I’ll report back in when I get back. Duncan Hunter to the end!!!!!
Thank you,
I am walking out the door now to be early and see if I can help.
See you later
Bookmark!
thanks. i’m always lost.
hahah This poll being quoted is online? How absurd is that?
Look, pollsters research zip codes, calling areas, precinct preference in the previous election, partisan mix in the previous election, the rules in play for a given election — and then they adjust what areas they call to reflect all of that.
Then they apply the MOE = 0.98 / (sqrt) N formula to determine how many to call. It is that formula that yields the 500 and 600 sample number to be about 5% margin of error at 95%.
And lastly, they keep calling right up to the last night to try to capture any opinion changes at the last minute.
They are generally useful not to measure the “score” so much as to measure the effectiveness of tactics. If an ad campaign is released and a candidate’s numbers show clear movement, regardless of their absolute value, then the campaign is informed as to effectiveness. If there is slow change, there is less confidence in effectiveness.
But in general an online poll that allows sampling from people not even living in the voting region, or spoofing of IPs or any of many obvious corruptive influences, is meaningless.
Not absurd when one is simply trying to have a little fun.
It makes about as much sense as the other gazillion bs polls we are treated to on a daily basis.
;*)
It’s an online poll. For entertainment only.
Thanks for a thread dedicated to the Nevada caucus.
Looking forward to your report, Huckleberry.
Pinging some FRiends.
I think the first precinct or county votes in 10 minutes.
RECORD TURNOUT
My pictures are processing - polling place is full and a line is backed up for three blocks.
GOD BLESS YOU FELLOW NEVADIANS
Please ping anyone interested.
“Huckabee vouches for McCain’s conservative credentials (like he’d know), and McCains apparently trusts every word Huckabee says, because he’s using him as a spokesperson.”
Oh, the irony.
They are both dissembling RINOs.
Co-dependents in a scheme to defraud the GOP of a conservative nominee.
NEVADA, PLEASE VOTE ROMNEY!
Proamnesty-antiBushtaxcuts-proCO2caps-CFR-RINO John McCain delenda est!
Those are great pictures. How long did it take the line to process?
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