Here are some pictures taken at Vaughn Middle School today, where I participated in the Nevada caucus. (All photos taken by flea.)

I got there a little early, helping the Obama campaign give out stickers as caucus-goers walked in. (This is where I had my unfortunate encounter with a Clinton supporter.) There were four precincts voting at the school, so there were quite a few people filing in.

At noon, you had to be signed in and inside your precinct's room. They explained the caucus rules, computed the viability threshold at 13, and then had us gather in the parts of the room that represented our first choice candidate. The Edwards group barely made viability, but they were in. It was immediately clear that Obama had more people than Clinton, but there was still the "realignment" round. Only two candidates with any voters did not make viability: Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson. Most of those people realigned with Obama, but a couple went to the Clinton camp.

They counted up the realignments, put the final count on a white board, and started assigning the delegates. Obama got 7, Clinton 4, and Edwards 3. Right after this, each group was responsible for electing the delegates who will attend the county convention and cast their votes. It was a bit of a chaotic process, but I was glad that we sent a diverse group.

Our room started to empty out, so we started wandering around the school to see how the other precincts were doing. The picture in the upper right above was from one of the other rooms, held in the school gym. It was the only room in the school that Clinton took. (Obama was up three overall.)

After the results in our local precincts were settled, we went back home where the networks were already calling it for Clinton. Overall, I enjoyed the process, but was depressed by some of the reasons people had for choosing their candidates. And although I liked the community aspect of caucusing, I still feel that primaries are a fairer system.

One last interesting thing of note: it looks like the results here in Nevada are breaking down the same lines as the Question 7 campaign in 2006 (which I worked on). Notably, Question 7 did very poorly among older voters and Hispanic voters, exactly where Clinton did her best. Additionally, it looks like Obama beat Clinton by 10 points in Washoe County (Reno), and lost badly in Clark County (Vegas). Similarly, Question 7 did poorly in Clark and had its best performance in Washoe. I'm not sure what this says, but it's an interesting observation.

All right, time to go get some food after a long day of politickin'.

Correction: It's been a year since the 2006 elections, so I got some facts wrong. First, Question 7 did the best in Storey County, not Washoe, although it did very well in Washoe. Second, Question 7 did very well among Hispanics and not so well among African-Americans, so I completely reversed that trend. I guess that makes the above a less interesting observation.

Quick update: just got back from caucusing here in Reno, Nevada. Obama took 50% of the delegates in my precinct compared to Clinton's 29%, but CNN is calling it for Clinton. I'll be back in a bit with pictures and more details, but I'll just say one thing: if you don't think those Muslim emails going around are hurting Obama, you're wrong. One elderly woman with a Clinton sticker shouted at me nastily: "I won't vote for a Muslim!" I spoke with another person who had the same belief, and I later saw her in the Clinton corner. Very depressing.

When I changed my address at the DMV today, I registered to vote as a member of a political party for the first time in my life.¹ I took this step in order to vote in the Nevada Democratic primary this January, which is scheduled to take place after the Iowa caucus but before the New Hampshire primary.

My plan is to switch back to nonpartisan status after the primary, because even though I am more politically aligned with the Democrats than the Republicans: 1) the mainstream Democratic platform diverges from my personal beliefs on several key issues; and 2) I have general frustrations with the American two party system.

In any case, I'm looking forward to participating in the caucus process.

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¹ This isn't entirely true, since I was automatically registered as a Democrat when I voted in the 2004 Massachusetts primary, but I switched back to independent status within days.(return)