Just wanted to share a few things I learned at caucus trainings yesterday. One was givin by Bernie's field office by UNLV, one was given by the NV Democrats (but I found it through the Bernie event finder). I'm going to try to share what I learned -- I'm sure I will have missed/forgotten some things, so please let me know if I'm not correct on something.
NV Dems Training
I'll start with this one first, since it was much more informational about the whole process.
Some of the main points I learned:
Each location will have a temporary precinct chair that is trained by the NV Dems on how to administrate the caucus.
The chair calls the meeting to order and will call for an election of a permanent precinct chair. Someone will second the motion; other people can run for chair also; a vote of yays and nays for chair candidates will decide. The caucus goers can choose to elect this person, or could elect anyone else present to be the chair.
After the chair is elected, the chair will call for the election of a secretary, who helps assist in running the caucus event. If the NV Dems-trained temporary chair is not elected as chair, they will also run to become the secretary.
If the temporary chair is not elected to either chair or secretary, they'll still stick around to help out and make sure everything is being run fairly.
Once the business of electing the chair and secretary is done, they will count the number of attendees in order to determine the viability threshold. This is actually based on the number of delegates assigned to the precinct (this number was calculated based on the number of people registered as democrats in November).
If a precinct will have 1 delegate, they go by a majority count.
If there are 2 delegates, then candidates must have 25% of attendees for viability.
If there are 3 delegates, then the candidates must have 1/6 of the attendees to be viable; if there are 4 or more delegates, than the candidates must have 15% of the attendees to be viable.
If the uncommitted camp has viability, they are -locked in- as uncommitted, and there will be a delegate/delegates assigned. They can't switch camps if this group is viable. *All of these numbers are rounded up - so if someone needs a calculated 10.6 people to be considered viable, they realistically need 11.
Once figuring out the threshold for viability, the chair will call for the first alignment. You have 15 minutes to align to the space for you candidate, or go as "uncommitted." In these 15 minutes you CAN and SHOULD be trying to persuade uncommitted people and even Hillary's people to come over to Bernie's side! Since the uncommitteds can be locked in and awarded a delegate, it's important to try to convince them before they are determined to be a viable preference.
If all candidates and uncommitted have viability, the alignment part is over.
If a candidate or the uncommitted group does not have viability, the chair will call for a second alignment. The candidate's preference group will be given the opportunity to try to win these people over. They can either choose a new candidate, or could leave at this point.
Once the second alignment is complete, everyone is counted again.
The chair then calculates how many delegates should be awarded to each candidate. I'm missing the calculation they showed, but I believe the math is a simple preference group percentage * total precinct delegates = # of awarded delegates:
of people who were counted for the candidate, divided by the total number of attendees, times the number of delegates available, rounded based on 0.5 (<0.5 is rounded down, >= 0.5 is rounded up).
*So if 28 people are voting, Candidate 1 has 11 people and Candidate 2 has 17, and there are 6 total delegates, Cand. 1 will get 2, Candidate 2 will get 4.
Once the number of delegates is determined, the chair will ask for an election of delegates. Anyone in the candidate's group can volunteer. The delegates go on to the county and further democratic conventions, on their own dime. The NV Dems also would like to see alternative delegates in case the original ones cannot, for some reason, fulfill the commitment. There is one minute for this process.
There will be time at the end for everyone to submit Platform Resolution Proposals, i.e., issues you think should be addressed as part of the overall Democratic campaign for the Presidency, regardless of who is the final democratic candidate. These can be given verbally or you can download and print off a form ahead of time to submit at the caucus.
Other important things:
Non-caucusing members of the public are allowed to attend and observe. Observers cannot persuade or influence the caucus attendees. This includes booing or cheering when someone is convinced to move to a candidate, or any other form of comment to the attendees that could influence the attendees is prohibited.
If you see anything like this happening, contact the NV Dems (there should be a hotline) / precinct chair and demand that it is stopped immediately. The chair can ask the observers to stop, if they don't, he/she can ask them to leave. If the chair does not enforce the rules, call the NV Dem hotline number immediately, they will send staff out to make sure things are being run correctly.
Caucus participants CAN influence and persuade, boo, yay, whatever! :)
Candidates cannot campaign to you while you are waiting outside to come in to the caucus. There may be attempts elsewhere near the location, which is frowned upon but hard to enforce; but doing it at the line is a definite no-no.
Everyone attending to caucus will be given a Presidential Preference card. Do NOT lose it! It will be collected as another way to verify the numbers.
There IS a way to tele-caucus for oversees military men, etc. http://nvdems.com/caucus/about/
There are at-large caucus locations if you are a shift worker within 2.5 miles of the at-large locations - e.g., if you work on the Strip: http://nvdems.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Memo_AtLargePrecinct_Caucus_Guidelines.pdf
If there is a tie for a delegate, a game of chance is permissible. Iowa used coin tosses. NV Dems is recommending precincts use a sealed deck of cards, to be shuffled twice, then spread out on a table and spread out/shuffled again over the table surface, and then reps for the candidates will pick a card; high card wins. It's totally fair game, which is why it's important for every last person to get to their caucus on time and to win over as many people as possible.
The numbers will be texted or submitted via a computer or an app to the NV Dems "boiler room." Anyone should be able to observe the submission that wants to.
You can register on the day of the caucus if you need to - but try to do it ahead of time because it's going to be very busy at the caucuses.
They also held a mock caucus - Yoda vs. Darth Vader, so gauging the crowd's support for the real candidates was hard to gauge, but there was some inspiring and hilarious arguments made on behalf of Yoda and Darth Vader. I do think the crowd was most Bernie supporters, probably because the event was listed on his campaign event site, but I have no real data to back that up.
Overall, I felt the NV Dems training, and how they plan to run the caucuses, was and will be very fair to all candidates. They did invite reps from each candidate's campaign to come speak. Bernie's people, for some reason, did not attend. Hillary's person was a backup and didn't really do a great job presenting a good argument for Hillary (everyone nodded politely at least.) She mentioned she was supporting Hillary's because Hillary supports immigration reform - I wanted to point out that Bernie's position is even more favorable for immigrants, but I withheld my comments.
Training with Bernie's people
The one at Bernie's office was, obviously, geared towards how to support Bernie in the caucus. Not a whole lot of actual information about the caucus, actually. They talked a little bit about possible distraction and other illegal tactics. Talked a little about the process, but not nearly the depth that the NV Dems did. They showed campaign videos and did a good job Feeling the Bern. It was cool to see the variety of people in the room.
One thing that Bernie's camp said, but I did not confirm w/ the NV Dems, is that if you are going to caucus and need to request time off from work, your employer must give you the time off of work, but you must give your employer 10 days notification.
As far as what we can do to help Bernie, out of state people can do a lot of good phone banking and canvasing. Phone banking and canvassing is based off of big data, so you are mostly trying to make contact with people are already like Bernie, but may not show up to caucus, so the focus is more getting them there than to convince them he's the right candidate.
For in-state people, they are actively recruiting precinct captains, which are volunteers for the campaign who will help direct people to the campaign's corner, try to persuade uncommitteds, keep an eye that everything is being operated fairly, etc. Captains may also help out a lot by canvassing in their precincts if possible - nothing like neighbor to neighbor contact to get people out to vote, right?!
Overall, it was really helpful to go to both trainings. At both trainings the people giving presentations commented on how they'd been to a number of trainings and kept learning something each time, so, I hope this helps get out some information and give you all an idea of what to expect.
TL;DR: Caucuses are crazy. Visit http://nvdems.com/caucus/how/ for actually useful information.
