{"id":46699,"date":"2023-09-06T12:54:14","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=46699"},"modified":"2023-09-06T12:54:14","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:54:14","slug":"debunking-nevada-gops-claims-in-caucus-vs-primary-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/debunking-nevada-gops-claims-in-caucus-vs-primary-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking Nevada GOP’s Claims in Caucus vs. Primary Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

(Chuck Muth)<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Grab another cup of coffee; this is gonna be a long one.\u00a0 But you won’t get this information anywhere else…
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Unless sane Central Committee heads prevail at the Nevada Republican Party\u2019s meeting in Winnemucca on September 23, Nevada voters will see\u00a0FOUR<\/u>\u00a0elections next year.
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There will be the November 5 general election, the June 11 primary election, the February 6 presidential primary election, and the Nevada GOP\u2019s separate presidential \u201ccaucus\u201d on February 8.
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And if you believe Nevada Republican Party Chairman\u00a0Michael McDonald<\/strong>, Republican National Committeeman\u00a0Jim DeGraffenreid<\/strong>, and Republican National Committeewoman\u00a0Sigal Chattah<\/strong>\u00a0that Caucus-Con isn\u2019t being rigged to benefit\u00a0Donald Trump<\/strong>, you probably also believe\u00a0OJ Simpson<\/strong>\u00a0is innocent.
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First, it\u2019s important to know that Nevada was one of only 13 states that still used a presidential caucus before this cycle.\u00a0 And the level of disinformation \u2013 including outright falsehoods \u2013 the trio of Nevada GOP leaders are putting out could choke a horse.
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For example, McDonald told the\u00a0Washington Examiner<\/a>\u00a0over the weekend that \u201cAnybody who\u2019s been involved in selecting a president (in Nevada) since 1981 has been involved in a caucus.\u201d
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Not true.
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In March 1996, the Nevada GOP held a state-run presidential primary when the state had fewer than 1.7 million people.\u00a0 Over 146,000 Republicans took part in that primary, which, by the way, was an\u00a0ALL MAIL-IN<\/u>\u00a0presidential primary.
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By comparison, almost half that number participated in the 2016 GOP presidential caucus \u2013 75,482 – despite Nevada\u2019s population soaring to almost 3 million people.
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In trying to spin the unspinable, DeGraffenreid wrote in an op-ed, published by the\u00a0Nevada Globe<\/a>, that turnout in the 2022 general election (54.7%) dropped from the 2020 general election turnout (62.4%), claiming it proved the Democrats\u2019 universal mail-in voting system didn\u2019t boost turnout.
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But here\u2019s what DeGraffenreid isn\u2019t telling you\u2026<\/strong>
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2020 was a presidential election year.\u00a0 2022 was a non-presidential election year.\u00a0 And turnout is always higher in presidential election years than in non-presidential election years. So, sorry Jim, that dog won\u2019t hunt.
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And then there was 2020.
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In his re-election bid, Trump didn\u2019t want to face Nevada GOP voters in either a caucus\u00a0OR<\/u>\u00a0a primary.\u00a0 As such, the Nevada Republican Party did his bidding and cancelled its presidential caucus outright, despite there being four other Republican candidates in the race, including one former governor and two former Members of Congress.
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As Politico reported in September 2019\u2026
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cFour states are poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump\u2019s long-shot primary challengers.<\/em>
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cRepublican parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas are expected to finalize the cancellations in meetings this weekend, according to three GOP officials who are familiar with the plans. The moves are the latest illustration of Trump\u2019s takeover of the entire Republican Party apparatus.\u201d<\/em>
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If that\u2019s not election rigging, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/strong>
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That said, I opposed efforts to legislatively mandate a primary over a caucus in 2015 while McDonald, ironically, favored switching to a primary after the 2012 GOP caucus debacle.\u00a0
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And one of the chairman\u2019s mini-minions,\u00a0Rob Tyree<\/strong>, recently tried to take me to task on social media after I began criticizing next year\u2019s coming Fuster-Caucus\u2026
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cYou sure didn\u2019t like the idea of a primary a few years ago, Chuck. What changed, other than perhaps who is writing you checks?\u201d<\/em>
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I love it when these mental midgets try to falsely claim my opinions on various issues are bought-and-paid-for.\u00a0 It\u2019s all they have when they can\u2019t argue the logic of my positions.
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That said, here\u2019s what changed: The law.<\/strong>
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Like it or not, the Nevada Legislature in 2021 changed the law switching Nevada from a caucus state to a primary state.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to like the law \u2013 and I don\u2019t \u2013 but the law is the law. That\u2019s what changed.\u00a0 Derp.
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And while the law says there\u00a0WILL<\/u>\u00a0be a presidential primary next February, the Supreme Court has also ruled that the party can select its delegates to the Republican National Convention in any matter it so chooses.
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After the Chattah Box filed a lawsuit to block the state-run primary and lost, the party decided to proceed with a separate caucus two days after the primary\u2026which is going to confuse the hell out of your average Republican voter who doesn\u2019t understand all this \u201cinside baseball.\u201d
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But it gets worse\u2026
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The party is requiring the GOP presidential candidates to pick one or the other.\u00a0 If they opt to put their name on the primary ballot, they are prohibited from having their name appear on the caucus ballot.
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What\u2019s this mean?\u00a0
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Well, for example, you could have\u00a0Ron DeSantis<\/strong>\u00a0win the Nevada primary on Tuesday night and Trump win the Nevada caucus on Thursday night.\u00a0 Nah, no chance for confusion there, right?
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In fact, since it costs\u00a0ZERO<\/u>\u00a0to put your name on the primary ballot, but a whopping $55,000 to buy your way onto the Nevada GOP caucus ballot, we could well end up with Trump being the\u00a0ONLY<\/u>\u00a0candidate on the caucus ballot.
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What a stunning \u201cvictory\u201d that would be!<\/strong>
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Of course, the party justifies the caucus fee by saying it needs the money to pay for conducting the caucus at, as DeGraffenreid wrote, \u201cthousands of individual precinct meetings around the state.\u201d
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In other words, it doesn\u2019t have the money needed to conduct the caucus and *hopes* to raise the dough by charging the campaigns an obscene amount of money.
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But what if only one or two candidates agree to the shakedown.\u00a0 Where\u2019s the rest of the money gonna come from then?
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And while the party is spending money \u2013 not to mention a ton of time \u2013 trying to organize a completely unnecessary and self-defeating caucus, it\u2019s ignoring groundwork that needs to be laid for every other race on the ballot next year, especially legislative races to protect Gov.\u00a0Joe Lombardo\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a075 vetoes.
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Brilliant strategery there.\u00a0 But hang on.\u00a0 More dumb to come\u2026<\/strong>
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In his op-ed, DeGraffenreid argues that the privately funded caucus is \u201ca big improvement over the millions of taxpayer dollars that the state plans to waste on a meaningless and confusing primary, but only true fiscal conservatives would care about that.\u201d
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Nice try.\u00a0 But that dog won\u2019t hunt either.
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First, conducting elections is one of the few legitimate roles of government \u2013 up there with fire and police and other public safety responsibilities.\u00a0 If you\u2019re worried about the cost of running an election, there\u2019s a\u00a0TON<\/u>\u00a0of non-essential government spending that any fiscal conservative would gladly cut to cover it.
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Secondly, the only thing making the presidential election confusing is the Nevada GOP\u2019s decision to ignore the new state law and hold its competing caucus two days later.
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Thirdly, the primary wouldn\u2019t be meaningless.\u00a0 What the Nevada GOP isn\u2019t telling everyone is that the delegates to the national convention won\u2019t actually be selected until the state convention three months later.
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The party could easily draft rules for delegate selection that are based on the primary\u00a0results.\u00a0 So the idea that the primary would block the party from establishing its own delegate selection process is \u2013 well, not true.
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Heck, even DeGraffenreid admits that \u201cthere\u2019s no requirement in state law that parties use the Presidential Preference Primary to allocate and bind their delegates to the National Convention, where the party\u2019s nominee is ultimately selected.\u201d
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DeGraffenreid goes on to argue\u2026
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThe fact is that primary elections are far easier to \u2018rig\u2019 than a caucus. \u2026 Ballots are counted out of sight for days after the election, mail in signatures are sporadically checked, and there\u2019s no way to audit the results.\u201d<\/em>
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McDonald seconds that emotion, \u201cpointing to a \u2018serious problem\u2019 in Nevada with mail-in ballots and serious questions being raised about accountability.\u201d
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The Examiner continued\u2026
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201cMcDonald said, \u2018Thousands of ballots that are just stuffed in trash cans after they go to an apartment complex\u2019 or \u2018floating around the streets mailing to different addresses where people don’t live there anymore,\u2019 adding some ballots are \u2018voted out of storage units, some that are voting out of vacant lots.\u2019\u201d<\/em>
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This hearkens back to the post-2020 allegations in which the party claimed it had\u00a0over 130,000 pieces of \u201cevidence\u201d<\/a>\u00a0supposedly showing massive voting fraud.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t then, and it doesn\u2019t now.
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But don\u2019t take my word for it.\u00a0 Call the party right now \u2013 (702) 586-2000 \u2013 and ask to see the 130,000 pieces of evidence showing exactly which allegedly ineligible voters cast allegedly illegal, fraudulent ballots from out-of-state or from storage units and vacant lots.
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Plan on being placed on \u201chold\u201d for about a hundred years.<\/strong>
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For his part, DeGraffenreid writes that \u201cour usual caucus process\u201d will be used \u201cto pick our nominee without outside interference in a secure and transparent process\u2026\u201d\u00a0 McDonald added that it\u2019s the party\u2019s \u201cright to choose our nominee.\u201d
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OK, fine and dandy.\u00a0 But riddle me this, Batman\u2026
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Let\u2019s say that party leaders are being open and honest about all this.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s a stretch, but play along.
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If a presidential primary is so littered with problems of fraud, rigging, transparency, etc., why isn\u2019t it b*tching about the June primary to select its nominees for all the other offices other than president?
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I mean, if the party truly believes a state-run primary can\u2019t be honestly run by the Nevada Secretary of State, then why doesn\u2019t it blow off the June state-run primary and hold a nominating convention to select its candidates like third-party parties?
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Or like Utah.
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Utah has a state-run primary.\u00a0 However, \u201cif a candidate receives enough votes\u201d at the state convention, \u201cthey receive the nomination outright and proceed straight to the general election\u201d without having to run in the primary.
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The Nevada GOP will, of course, argue they aren\u2019t allowed to nominate its candidates at a nominating convention because of state law.
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Um,\u00a0HELLO<\/u>?
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State law also now says to hold a presidential primary, which the Nevada GOP unsuccessfully sued to block.\u00a0 So the party wants to pick and choose which laws to follow.\u00a0
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Sounds\u2026what\u2019s the word I\u2019m looking for here\u2026oh, yeah\u2026hypocritical.<\/strong>
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Another argument against the caucus is that it\u2019s exclusionary \u2013 which it is. But once again, DeGraffenreid tries to spin the unspinable\u2026
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u201c(J)ust like the primary, the caucus is open to every Republican voter in the state. The Republican caucus has a drop and go feature which allows any voter\u2026(to) cast their ballot and leave without participating in any of the other caucus activities or conversation. This makes voting at the caucus the equivalent of voting in the state run primary for those who choose to participate in this way.\u201d<\/em>
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Um, no.
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If you want to vote in the primary, you can vote by mail, vote up to two weeks before Election Day, or vote at any time on Election Day.
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If you want to vote in the caucus, you must vote at 5:00 pm on Thursday, February 8th in person.
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The two are as \u201cequivalent\u201d as the U.S. Army and the Salvation Army.<\/p>\n