Clark County Dems vote again, this time 'smoothly'

Delegates, finished casting their votes, exit past long lines of voting machines inside the Thomas & Mack.LAS VEGAS-In make-up voting from their unsuccessful Feb. 23 convention, Clark County Democrats hosted caucus delegates at the Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV today in an event that was long on organization and calls of party unity and decidedly short on drama.

"It was very simple, it was great," said Steve Ginsberg, 44, after he had cast his vote.  "They should have incorporated more of this at the first one.  Bottom-line is the speeches were great [Feb. 23], but what counts is that vote.  They got the vote out here with no pomp and now we can move forward."

In results released less than an hour after the vote concluded, N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton received 3,442 votes and won 1,330 delegates to the state convention, or just under 54 percent of the total number of delegates.  Obama received 2,900 votes and was awarded 1,133 delegates, or 46 percent.  Turnout was approximately 86 percent of the total identified delegates.

Clinton's total percentage of delegates declined by a fraction of a percent from her Jan. 19 precinct caucus showing, where she received 54.5 percent of the precinct delegates.  Obama gained almost 2.5 percent from that earlier voting.

Political consultant Billy Vassiliadis, CEO of R&R Partners and an Obama supporter, spoke briefly with PolitickerNV.com about some of their efforts to get people to the poll.

"We've had several meetings with volunteers; the number of people who volunteered to do phone work or e-mail work was just phenomenal," said Vassiliadis.  "Our folks are excited.  They're energized.  We have seen no dampening in enthusiasm since Feb. 23."

Vassiliadis predicted that Obama would receive at least a one-vote majority of Nevada's 25 pledged delegates from the state convention May 17-18 and "hopefully we'll get a second one."

"We'll see how it goes," Vassiliadis added.  "Everything has been going as good as we can expect with superdelegates breaking our way pretty significantly.  I think there's more and more a sense that we are the inevitable candidate instead of Hillary."

Clark County Democrats outside the Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV for their Saturday re-voteClinton's campaign had also worked hard to get their delegates to the polls and supporters of both candidates admitted they had received calls asking them to switch their votes.  This morning, one Clinton staffer was at the Thomas & Mack with a laptop, a half-dozen volunteers and a number of clipboards, directing the volunteers to identify Clinton delegates as they came out and checking them off an electronic list.  The list, part of Clinton's continuing get-out-the-delegate effort, was used for calls throughout the day, urging absentee delegates to come cast their votes.

The actual voting was highly organized, with over 200 volunteers working with state and county Democratic staff to ensure that delegates could get in and out with a minimum of hassle.  When delegates arrived, they were directed to alphabetically-arranged tables to check their credentials and then to one of the approximately 150 voting machines provided by the Clark County registrar of voters.

"Everyone in the community really stepped up and wanted to make sure that everyone had a say," said Clark County Democratic chair John Hunt.  "For me, the most important thing is that we've seen the commitment by people in our community to changing the direction of our country.  Without a doubt, this process exemplifies that."

Delegates uniformly praised the ease of their voting on their way out of the Thomas & Mack and some suggested that future events should be similarly organized.

"This is the way it should have been," said Janice Rowland, 59, referring to the Jan. 19 precinct caucuses.  "I think we need to go completely away from the caucus idea.  The idea that neighbors could talk about politics in a friendly matter was an idealistic approach that was just never going to happen.  We need a primary."