Want to Pick the Presidential Nominee?

If you live in Nevada, here's what you do: Attend the Republican caucus on February 4.

The Clark County Republican Party (CCRP) has set up a website to provide facilitate the caucus and provide information to caucus attendees. The doors will open at 8 a.m. and the caucus will begin at 9. If you're going to go, be on time or, better yet, be early.

For the first time, those planning to attend the caucus can pre-register online. Turnout is expected to be high so people can avoid the check-in lines by pre-registering. Another benefit of pre-registering is that all of the information needed to participate in the caucus (Precinct #, Caucus Location, etc.) are contained on the printout page that is generated during pre-registration. This page must also be presented at the entrance to skip the check-in line at the caucus. Regardless of whether one chooses to pre-register or not, a photo ID is required to gain entrance to the caucus.

The caucus is actually just a combination of hundreds of precinct meetings. Each attendee must participate in his/her precinct meeting. During that meeting delegates and alternates to the County convention will be selected and the Presidential Preference Poll will be conducted. This will determine the allocation of Nevada's delegates to each Presidential candidate.

It's important to avoid being late because once a precinct meeting is over, it's over. The members of that precinct are free to go and anyone from that precinct who shows up after that time will not be allowed to vote.

Although the CCRP has blocked out four hours (until 1 p.m.), it's unlikely any meeting will last nearly that long. Some meetings of smaller precinct may only last a few minutes because that's all it will take to get through the business. Anyone who shows up after their precinct meeting has been completed, won't get a vote.

Important update to the schedule. Last night at the Clark County Republican Central Committee meeting, the Executive Board of the CCRP held an emergency meeting to address a problem that prevented some people from attending the caucus.

Some members of the GOP had raised religious objections to the Saturday caucus. Observant Jews, Seventh-Day Adventists and others are prohibited from certain activities on Saturdays and would be unable to attend the caucus.

The E-Board voted to offer an additional caucus session on Thursday evening, February 2 at 7 p.m. Sheldon Adelson offered the use of his Adelson School to hold these meetings.