The good news is we convinced Dad to attend the caucus. He mentioned that the upcoming election will be his 18th presidential election. And he'd never missed voting in an election. But he'd never participated in a caucus. And in his defense, Nevada started the caucus process on 2008. Armed with our location and the time the doors open, we set off to the nearby middle school. Doors opened at 11:00 and would close at noon. If you are in the line at noon you will be let in.
We arrived at the school around 10:30 AM. Uh oh. The parking lot is full and a line is wrapping around the school. Brian drops me and Dad off at the school and we get in line. Brian parks in the overflow lot, which is actually the parking lot at the nearby mall. No, I don't know why the school is backed up to a shopping mall. Good thing the weather was nice. Low 70s nice. We moved to another line because Brian and I pre registered. I tried to register Dad earlier in the week, but we found out that he was not a registered democrat, so he stayed in the long line.
However I can only stand so long. Dad can stand forever. Lol. I went to sit on a bench. While talking to a guy there, he mentioned that the preregistration line was also the line for the handicapped. And basically the handicapped voters can go right in. I told Dad to go in. Not that being 89 is a handicap.. And he's clearly not disabled, but really. Who is going to let an 89 year old WWII veteran wait in line? He marched right in and got taken care of. Brian and I made it in about 30 minutes later. 4 people registering us. The preregistered line really did move fast and smoothly. We had a registration number we got when we registered online. I gave them the printout with the number on it. Or as the young kids flashed the number on their "cracked" phones (lol). The number was typed in, then it was validated it was me and then I was given a ballot with my precinct number on it. I was then directed to my precinct room which in my case was the school cafeteria. With 2 other precincts. Noisy.
We got to the room and Dad was nowhere in sight. He eventually wandered in. He went exploring the school and got lost. Lol. The process couldn't start until everyone was let in. Everyone finally got in by 1:30. Yes. The line was that long. And yes there really were that many people. And yes I think that it was fantastic that so many people wanted to participate. In addition, there was a fair share of people who did not speak English..Hispanics and Asians. And a fair number of young people (yay!) And people wore their candidates loudly and proudly. And yes people were trying to persuade others to shift to their candidate while we were waiting. The act of persuasion is not an official part of the caucus. In a perfect world, we would not be waiting 3 hours for the caucus process to start.
So we're inside. For the most part the Hillary and Bernie folks sat together and got along together. I did encounter a particular rabid Bernie supporter. What I observed is that more than quite a few Bernie supporters have a strong dislike for Hillary. Strong enough that they would rather vote republican or not vote at all. That's a problem. It was not a majority. But still. And yes, you know your Pat got into it with one of them. But he was spewing venom and he just needed to be called out. The caucus wasn't the place for that. Especially if the goal was to attract people to Bernie. And Dad was jumping in. Rofl. Anytime someone tried to convince us Bernie was the better candidate, my Dad turned into a hard nose. Don't argue with smart old dudes!!
Once everyone was let in the process started. The temporary precinct caucus chairman read procedure stuff to us, then read letters from Harry Reid, Dina Titus (Democratic congressional rep), some other guy, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Then more rules were read, they told us how many delegates would be allocated from our precinct. And then finally. We separated into our groups. We seemed overwhelmed by "feel the Bern". Well the final allocation of delegates out of 16 were...7 for Hillary and 9 for Bernie. Well that wasn't too bad. But guess what? We had barely finished....around 2:30...when notifications came in that Hillary had won the caucus!!! Woot! Though that brought down the Sanders folks. They felt the burn? I'm sorry (hangs head).
My conclusion still stands that the caucus process is awful. So many people are left out. While making the telephone calls for the Clinton campaign we discovered that a lot of the elderly couldn't make it. Others had medical issues. People were out of town. People had to work. I'm pretty sure my barber wasn't going to close his shop to participate in a caucus. And I don't blame him. Orthodox Jews, Seventh Day Adventists and other who have Saturday sabbath won't participate. And the process is confusing. I would have preferred going someplace to vote or even voted absentee. But this time , I spent a long uncomfortable day just to stand on one side of the room for 15 minutes to indicate who I wanted for a candidate. And what about those who prefer the secret ballot. Who'd rather that others don't know how they vote? Nah. Caucuses suck.
If you have any questions about the Nevada caucus please ask. That's it for today. It's a long entry. I'll update you on dialysis news on Wednesday. Have a great Monday!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment