by April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current
Nevada’s top election officials on Thursday expressed confidence in their ability to dutifully administer a presidential primary in early February, but they largely sidestepped discussing the obvious potential for mass voter confusion that may arise from a competing party-run presidential caucus scheduled for the same week.
Democrats in the Nevada Legislature attempted to move the state away from party-run caucuses by passing a bill in 2021 mandating state-run presidential primaries be held. The Nevada State Republican Party opposes the change and earlier this year announced they would proceed with a caucus.
On Thursday, during a presentation to the Nevada Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Participatory Democracy, Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid made it clear the state party would only be using results from their caucus to determine delegate allocation.
In separate presentations, Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Wlaschin emphasized that the primary is nonbinding when it comes to the political parties.
“The presidential preference primary — again, required by statute — does not force any private organization to select their candidate for the general election,” he said at one point. “It does not tip their hand or otherwise corner them into doing so. Our elections, of course, the very root of them is to identify the will of the people. These elections will identify the people’s preference based on the candidates on their appropriate ballot.”
At another point, Wlaschin said, “The individuals who receive the most votes in this primary are not required to be the major party’s candidates for the general election.”
What remained unsaid but is clear to election officials and political observers: Nobody is quite sure yet how many Republicans will file for Nevada’s presidential primary.
Nevada GOP members last week voted on caucus rules. Among them: A rule barring any candidate who files for the state-run presidential primary, scheduled for Feb. 6, from participating in the party-run caucus, scheduled for Feb. 8.
Wlaschin on Thursday said five candidates have scheduled appointments to file for the presidential primary, but he said he did not have a breakdown of which of the two major political parties the candidates are affiliated with.
DeGraffenreid in his presentation said “numerous candidates” had “already filed or committed to filing” for the caucus, though he did not offer specifics. Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald has previously said former president Donald Trump will participate in the caucus, and fellow candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign announced he would.
Other GOP candidates have been silent on the issue.
The Ron DeSantis campaign has been the most critical about the caucus plans put forth by the Nevada GOP, whose leaders are Trump allies who participated in his 2020 fake elector scheme. A caucus rule restricting the use of super PACs is widely seen as being directed at the Florida governor’s campaign.
Candidate filing periods for both the Democratic and Republican primaries and the Republican caucus will run from Monday, Oct. 2 to Monday, Oct. 16. After that period, there will be a 7-day period where candidates may withdraw from the primary.
The Secretary of State’s Office plans to update the list of declared candidates daily during the filing period.
Specter of confusion
The Nevada Republican Club prior to a state party vote urged local leaders to support abandoning the caucus idea. They warned that having two nominating processes during the same week will “frustrate, anger and confuse Nevada’s Republicans.”
The letter envisions thousands of GOP voters receiving mail ballots not listing candidates they know are running for president. It’s also possible the GOP primary winner receives more votes than the caucus winner but leaves Nevada having earned no delegates.
“Overall, the process will hurt the Republican Party and our candidates in 2024,” the club’s letter read. “Voters who participated in the Primary will find that their votes didn’t count.The Nevada Republicans Party will give average voters the impression they don’t care about them or their votes.”
The primary and caucus also have different rules regarding participation, which may lead to confusion. The state allows for same-day voter registration — meaning a nonpartisan can visit a vote center on Election Day, switch to the Republican Party, and cast their ballot. The Nevada GOP meanwhile will only allow voters to participate if they have been registered as Republicans for at least 30 days prior to caucus day.
The Nevada GOP will also require people to show photo identification before caucusing, something not required before casting a ballot in a state-run election.
Because of pending litigation between the Secretary of State’s Office and the Nevada GOP, the advisory committee members were cautioned by the state’s legal team to only ask the representatives of the political parties clarifying or informational questions.
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, speaking to press after the committee meeting, acknowledged the potential for confusion if both a state-run primary and a party-run caucus are held within days of one another.
“This was the first conversation to figure out how to approach that issue,” he said. “I think it’s on the party to really educate its voters and its members about how this process works and what the expectations are.”
Nevada’s state-run presidential preference primary is scheduled for Feb. 6, 2024. Ballots will be sent out to active registered voters in January, and a one-week in-person voting period will be held Jan. 27 through Feb. 2, 2024.
