Saturday in Nevada, caucus-goers will make their preferences known and their voices heard in the first-in-the-West contest for the 2020 Presidential election.
And they’ll have some phantoms in the room.
Ok, that’s dramatic. For the first time ever, the Democratic caucuses will incorporate the preferences of early voters.
FOX 13's Max Roth watched a really long, informative, but dry video about how it’s supposed to work.
The basics:
Show up at the caucus location at noon. If you are late, you ain’t getting in.
Now let’s say you’re choosing which Looney Tunes character you want to be president of Looney America.
The precinct captain will read welcome stuff verbatim and they’ll count all the voters out loud. (Be nice to the precinct captain. She’s a volunteer and it’s a pretty scary responsibility!)
They will add the count in the room to the number of people from the precinct who cast early ballots to get a total number.
With that number, they’ll figure out how many supporters a candidate will require in order to get at least one delegate from the precinct. This is called viability. The percentage needed is predetermined based on the population of Democrats in the precinct.
By the way, I’m saying Democrats because they have the competitive caucuses and are incorporating the new element of early voting.
Now it’s your turn to choose between the Looney Tunes.
Foghorn Leghorn is your choice. You go to an assigned corner of the room and you have fifteen minutes to try to look friendly and informed as you work to convince fence-sitters to join the Leghorn Legion. Perhaps your pitch is something like, “Ah say, Ah say, Ah say, weyotta find sum’ common grouwound in this heere caucus!”
Unfortunately few voters in the room heed those wise words. Your group is small, as are the groups for Marvin the Martian and Elmer Fudd.
Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck have plenty of support in the room.
But there’s still some suspense. After supporters in the room are counted out loud and written on a big poster on the wall, the precinct captain whips out her trusty iPad, which in this scenario works perfectly (gulp!) and they get the early vote count for each candidate.
Add the early votes in and Marvin the Martian is viable!
Sadly, Foghorn and Fudd are not. (Tangent: Foghorn and Fudd would be my law firm of choice!)
So in your precinct, Bugs, Daffy and Marvin will get delegates. Their supporters have to stay put.
This is called the first alignment.
Before the final alignment (my favorite Chiropractic Horror Movie) one supporter for each candidate gets one minute to address the crowd. This is the last hope for Foghorn in your precinct.
You make your speech (see above) and you hear from the others.
I’m sorry to say your pitch goes no better this time.
In the 15 minutes allotted for the final alignment, a couple of Foghorn supporters are intrigued by Marvin’s death ray powered by the Illudium d-4 crystal and he gains their votes.
Your other fellow alpha-rooster boosters are swayed by the Elmer Fudd supporter’s rant, which focuses on the need to keep “That wascawwy wabbit” from getting the nomination.
You walk into the welcoming arms of team Fudd, donning a floppy cap, and Fudd garners enough support to steal a delegate from Bugs.
