Let me first of all address my disillusionment with the ridiculous caucusing system here in Nevada, which I participated in this past February. At that time, there were three major Democratic candidates: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. Nevada, in it's new prominent role as an early primary/caucus state, revised it's caucus process, so that even the precinct captains were not well experienced. In my particular precinct, we had a little over 100 people gathered in the lunch room of an elementary school. The lines to get in were long, and everyone had to be in the room my 11:00am, when the doors where shut. Several people were turned away after arriving at 11:02am. Also, it was on a Saturday, which excluded observant Jews and 7th Day Adventist. I thought that was pretty silly. Anyhow, then, we received our ballots. Before we were allowed to mark them, we were to have a preliminary vote by showing of hands. Clinton had about a third, Edwards had about a third, and the remaining third was mostly undecided, except for four Edwards supporters, of which I was one. Because of the ridiculous rules we were to follow, the Edwards supporters were forced to change their votes before marking their ballots. Why? Because we had less than 15% support. Now I could understand this 15% rule if it meant that Edwards received no delegates if he failed to gain 15% support of the state-wide total. Instead, people in other precincts were were able to vote for Edwards, and contribute to his delegates for the state of Nevada. So because of the street I live on, I could not vote for Edwards while other people could. I found this preposterous, especially given that if I had attended an at-large caucus site, my vote for Edwards would have counted!

So I could not mark anything for the first ballot, despite my supporting Edwards and his name being on my ballot. The Clinton and Obama supporters put their X beside their respective candidate. Now here comes the part where my precinct captain's inexperience screws things up. Instead of the Edwards supporters trying to convince the undecideds to support their candidate, and thereby achieve the requisite 15%, we were told to either join the undecideds or support Clinton or Obama. Given the choice between the two, it was not hard for me to walk over to the Obama group. My strong dislike of Sen. Clinton is no secret. (And since Edwards himself has endorsed Obama, I feel somewhat justified in giving him my support.)

What comes next is truly ridiculous. The caucus system is different from a primary in that the attendees of a caucus system are able to discuss their support, and convince each other to support whichever candidate they like. This is especially important with drawing the undecideds to your particular candidate. Whosoever likes will then, one at a time, give some small speech to gather support. It is also not uncommon for each group of supporters to loudly chant their support, as is common at political rallies. In my precinct, however, there was no organized speech giving where anyone might hear and be persuaded. Instead, it was all mass chaos. No sensible reasons were giving for the undecideds to join one group of another, but after a time the precinct captain said they must choose or not vote. Undecided was not an option.

So my suggestions to make the caucus better? Make the precincts smaller, give time for organized speech-making and choose a time which better accommodates everyone. Or better yet, have a primary. Our other primaries and general elections, with their early voting and electronic machines, is so easy and accessible, it doesn't make sense that the Nevada Democratic Party has chosen the chaotic caucus system.

So in short, I was not allowed to vote for who I wanted to because of the ridiculous rules of the Nevada Democratic caucus.