Las Vegas Caucus Ends Before Delegates Chosen, Chaos Erupts

[votesparks]

[Fairgo]

1. wow

Nice to see corruption up close and personal. Very instructive.

[JDPriestly]

2. K&R. We should do away with caucuses. I called people in Nevada yesterday on behalf of

Bernie, and some could not attend because they were working or because they had no transportation. One woman just got out of the hospital after an operation. If Nevada had a primary she could have voted absentee. But they don't, so she could not vote.

What an unfair system. No to caucuses.

[LittleGirl]

7. or closed primaries

My mother lives in IN and she may not vote in the primary because you have to declare your party. Removes her anonymity in voting and she doesn't like that.

[jwirr]

32. One of the reasons for closed caucuses is that open ones can

be easily sabotaged. I have actually helped do this in local elections - voted in R primary for local unchallenged candidates so the one I wanted would win.

I have heard in the past this has also been a problem with presidential primaries - for instance, vote for the candidate your party would be able to beat the easiest.

I know this is a problem for people who are registered other than the Democratic Party but it can also be a problem in an open primary.

[LittleGirl]

36. But

it shouldn't matter who you vote for as long as you vote. Lowest voter turnout in the world...

[jwirr]

38. So you are saying that I should be able to lie about which

party I am in so that I can influence the outcome of another party?

[Enthusiast]

18. That sucks!

[HooptieWagon]

3. This is what happens when a party machine is in charge of an election.

Corrupt to the core, like the Richard Daley Machine in Chicago for decades.

[nashville_brook]

9. Amen to that

[Enthusiast]

19. Precisely.

[jwirr]

33. Not so sure this was a machine action. This leader was just

plain ignorant.

[HooptieWagon]

35. There's a video from a few months ago....

...secretly recorded, of her telling a gathering of precinct chairs how to cheat and not get caught. I saw an article saying the state party chair was under investigation and faces possible dis-barring, but it was a questionable source. If true, we'll probably soon see it reported elsewhere.

Although caucuses by nature are a bit chaotic, there was a lot of rat-fuckery going on that was clearly against the rules... Hillary's name and logo atop registration forms and ballots, and on and on.

[jwirr]

37. I hope that the investigation continues and in this particular

precinct it should be challenges and the whole count removed from the final totals.

[HooptieWagon]

39. It was the State Party Chair.

And I'm not sure about the reliability of the site where I read the story...could be RW. We'll see if the report gets picked up elsewhere.

[noretreatnosurrender]

4. OMG

This is unbelievable!

[brush]

5. That's one caucus out of hundreds.

Mine was not disorganized like that.

The reporter is obviously a Sanders supporter and has an agenda, but I do agree with him that the caucus system needs to go.

It's okay for small towns in Iowa where they have experience at doing it for years, but for larger cities where it's new there are hour long lines, a one hour time period to get into the caucus site to register or you can't get in, unfamiliar procedures and some poorly trained officials.

It took me two and a half hour to get through the whole thing.

With a primary you're in and out in 10-15 minutes and there's no one-hour time window. You can vote any time during the day and into evening at your leisure.

I say get rid of the caucus and go to a primary.

[votesparks]

11. I got to witness an Iowa Caucus In Davenport

and I thought it was fairly well run, except for not having enough registration forms, and the Hillary camp insisting on electing its delegates out of the room and out of site of the Sanders delegates, which I thought odd.

But overall it was quite polite and there were no big controversies. Bernie won that district by about 2/3, and the vote count was done out loud as they counted people on each side.

That said, it was totally inaccessible to people who had to work second shift. Although Iowa law does say a business owner must allow employees 3 hours to caucus, this isn't really reasonable for many businesses who would have to close down if they allowed an entire shift of employees to leave for three hours.

Also, there isn't a verifiable paper trail of each and every voter, and election fraud could fairly easily occur after the vote by party officials, especially when officially tallied vote counts aren't announced publicly and available for public inspection.

Every state should move to a uniformly consistent primary format where candidates are elected by the percentage of the popular vote, and where Stupordelegates do not exist. And please God, please shorten the length of the national election to a reasonable cycle.

[olddots]

6. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

the sleazy mob mentality scamming of the people as suckers .

[840high]

8. yep

[brush]

14. That's an out of date myth

Vegas is very much a city. It is not only "the Strip".

Most people here only go to the Strip when out of towners come to visit and want to go. And the mob is long gone in running the casinos.

[lapfog_1]

28. corporations run the casinos now

they are worse than the mob

[awoke_in_2003]

40. Yep

The mob at least had some values.

[jwirr]

34. How many of the people of Vegas work in the casinos or

related businesses?

[SoLeftIAmRight]

10. wow

...

[YOHABLO]

12. So we should say that the Clinton win may not have been?

[Lodestar]

13. The results DO INDEED NEED TO BE CHALLENGED! This can't go on.

Insanity!!!!!

[brush]

15. Calm down

I caucused in Vegas today and Hillary won easily in my precinct:

63 to 22

There was noting untoward. Once the caucus goers were separated into two groups it was open to everyone to see Clinton had three times as many supporters than Sanders.

[Fearless]

22. If that's the case then why worry??

[brush]

24. Who's worried?

[Fearless]

25. You're trying to stifle dissent.

You appear to be worried.

[brush]

27. Actual on the ground facts are now dissent?

What is this, bizzaro world or something where up is down and facts are false?

[aspirant]

30. So your 1 precinct tells us beyond any doubt

that all precincts are factually correct, bizaro world indeed.

[brush]

31. It's a small sample of what happened

Clinton won. That's not in dispute.

[Bohemianwriter]

16. There was a BIG WIN for "democracy" tonight!

Nevada! You can be PROUD of yourselves today!

[LovingA2andMI]

17. Nevada...

Shows America How Democracy is Done -- Again --- NOT!!

[Bohemianwriter]

26. They exemplify...

Last edited Sun Feb 21, 2016, 11:12 AM - Edit history (1)

for the rest of the world how banana republic democracy (Made in U.S.A.) shoud emulate...

And I keep pondering on what went wrong in Iraq....

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. In mine they had everyone hold up their chit until touched on the shoulder....

I did a fast look and guessed 60. It was 58.

They separated and they did another count but there was doubt on the Bernie count so they did it again only I led everyone in sounding out the count as it progressed giving everyone including the Hillary side a chance to participate. There was ZERO doubt on that count.

[captainarizona]

21. so hillary didn't win?

Don't put your money on bernie sanders challenging the vote count you will lose if you think he will.

[Fearless]

23. "Get back in line, nothing to see here."

[kathysart_decoration]

29. Disgrace which needs to be addressed

This video is difficult to even watch. What the Democrats are doing in Nevada is a complete disgrace and throws the caucus results into question. The results are not believable. Perhaps Clinton would win with a vote, but that needs to be determined. Sadly, it may be that this will not be reported on so there will be no pressure on the powers that be - perhaps this was even intentional. Who knows. I have problems with my laptop, so I am hoping those who know how to do so will send this to the Sanders campaign and to all news outlets - though I think nothing will happen there. I do believe and hope that the Sanders campaign will raise a huge stink about this because it really does call the whole result tally into question. As Democrats, we should not be standing for this. Quite frankly, caucuses, in general, should be done away with. They are ridiculously clumsy and ineffective and have no place in a democracy which supposedly prides itself on one person, one vote.

[Cowpunk]

41. Holy Fucking Shit!

What a mess.