377 Fernley Democrats vote early in caucus; two locations open for caucus Saturday
Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter
Two locations will be open Saturday for Fernley Democratic voters to join their statewide party mates to determine where Nevada stands in the hotly contested race to be the Democratic presidential nominee.
Fernley democrats in precincts 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34 will meet at Fernley Intermediate School, while those in precincts 30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 will gather at East Valley Elementary School.
In addition, there will also be voter registration at both locations.
Doors in both locations will open at 10 a.m. and precinct caucuses will be called to order at 12 p.m.
A total of 377 Fernley Democrats took advantage of the opportunity to cast their votes in the early caucus process last week, and there were also 55 registrations or re-registrations.
Participants in the Nevada caucuses will physically align themselves with other supporters of their candidate by going to a designated corner of the room. Caucusgoers can also join an “uncommitted” group.
Caucus organizers will then count the number of people in each group to produce a candidate’s first alignment vote.
Any candidate that does not receive 15 percent of the first alignment vote will be deemed nonviable, and his or her supporters can realign. If their first-choice candidate was just barely nonviable, they can also try to persuade supporters of other nonviable candidates to join their group, in a last-ditch effort to become viable. Voters in viable candidate groupings are locked in, however, and cannot realign.
Early voters were asked to rank between three and five candidates from their first choice to their last choice. Because they are not physically present, early voters’ second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-place picks will be used to realign them if their first-choice candidate isn’t still in the running.
After the final alignment, the number of county delegates a candidate has won will be calculated. Each precinct is worth a fixed number of county delegates based on the number of Democrats registered to vote there, and those delegates are assigned to candidates proportionally based on the final alignment vote totals. All precincts’ county delegate tallies will then be added together to produce a statewide total.