Hillary Clinton Wins Nevada Democratic Caucus

Las Vegas, Nevada -- Today I cast my voted in the Nevada Democratic Caucus taking place at Western High school in Las Vegas. The school hosted the location for a total of twelve precincts, inside five locations of the school: the cafeteria, gym, library, and two larger class rooms. Upon arriving at the school one thing was eminent, confusion.

With twelve precincts in one place, 12 chairpersons, treasurers, a hand full of coordinators and roughly a thousand potential voters had to coincide together to get things done while staying independent of each other. The majorities of the turn out were people over the age of 50, who expected a more organized process. My precinct was #6334 that resided in the Library.

A caucus contains 6 step process:

1. Register and distribute presidential preference cards.

2. Elect a chairperson and treasurer.

3. Perform the official head count: This is the number of registered attendees participating in the caucus.

4. First alignment: As a rule, all candidates must have 15% of the total number of attendees participating in the caucus vote for them in order to be assigned delegates. For example, if 100 people were participating in a caucus, at least 15 of those people must vote for candidate to receive delegates.

5. Second alignment: If a candidate has fewer than 15%, those people voting for the candidate are instructed to re-align themselves to an alternate candidate. This is the reason people are instructed to have a first and second candidate in mind. Alignment is done by a head count, with people physically lining up in a group representing there choice of candidates.

6. Distributed of delegates: The delegates are selected by the following formula: The number of attendees voting for a candidates multiplied by the total number of delegates elected from that precinct divided the total number of caucus attendees. For example: 11 people vote for Jon Edwards out of 65. 11 x 10 (15% of 65) / 65 = 2 delegates.

Western HS, Las Vegas, 11:55am - With the official caucus time to start at noon, the members of precinct #6334 elected the chairperson, Shae Wilhite and treasure, Ernie Wright. Ms. Wilhite followed by reading a letter from Senator Harry Reid, and then proceeded with educating us on how the caucus will work. At two minutes past noon, she performed the official attendee count. There were 65 participants in the caucus of precinct # 6334. After the official count had been received she began the first alignment. The people voting for each candidate were instructed to assemble along a color-coated wall represented our candidate. Being a Barack Obama supporter, I moved along the wall labeled Blue. We then elected Stan Nelson as our representative. He performed a head count, and reported back to the Chairperson. There was no need for a second alignment as all groups had enough people for there candidate. The final delegate report was as followed:

Hillary Clinton: 5 delegates (34 votes)

Barack Obama: 3 delegates (19 votes)

John Edwards: 2 delegates (11 votes)

The final process came to a close at 12:19pm as chairperson Shea Wilhite called in the results to the head of the democratic convention. This was instantly transmitted to MSNBC, FOX News and Washington.

Hillary Clinton won precinct #6334 and later went on to win the entire state of Nevada with a score of approximately 51% over Bracack Obama's 45%. As this was my first caucus, it was an exciting event. It was a great experience participating in how the presidential election takes place. I encourage anyone who is considering attending there caucus to do so.