LAS VEGAS -- The Nevada GOP Caucus ended two days ago, but it wasn't until Monday that the winner was officially announced.
Now, the Republican Party in Nevada is taking a lot of heat for the ballot-counting mess. Plus, caucus-goers are complaining of wrong start times and confusion over a second caucus for certain religious groups. The Clark County Republican Party Chair says these issues will not hold them up in November.
"I am not looking at what happened on Saturday at the caucus as a negative thing. You get something that big there are going to be issues that crop up, absolutely. Number one: all of the issues that cropped up were dealt with. Number two: there were questions about ballots. I just want to make sure everybody understands, we physically certified every ballot in Clark County," Chairman of Clark County GOP David Gibbs said.
Each precinct chair was supposed to count all the ballots, put them in a sealed envelope, write the total on the front of the envelope and then bring them to the county's GOP headquarters to be verified. That process took all night. Republican Party volunteers counted ballots until 4 a.m. Sunday morning at the Palazzo. They took a break and re-started at 9 a.m. What slowed the process further was each of the four campaigns had to verify those ballots to make sure they were legitimate. A total of 20 ballots in Clark County were disqualified for various reasons. Mitt Romney was officially declared the victor at 2 a.m. Monday. He gained more than 50 percent of the vote.
Another big problem was the second caucus held for only Jewish and Seventh-day-Adventist voters at the Adelson Educational Campus. Many voters were turned away because they didn't realize they had to sign an affidavit verifying their religion. They thought it was another opportunity to caucus but were denied the chance. In addition, several hundred voters were turned away at caucus sites because they did not have the right precinct number.
Besides the confusion over the ballots, voter turnout was lower than expected. It was down almost 26 percent from the 2008 caucuses. It was just under 33-thousand voters.
The Clark County GOP says some of that is because Romney was so far ahead and people didn't think their opposing vote would matter.
