DNC officially kills Nevada Democrats’ telephone caucus
A Democratic National Committee panel voted Friday to reject the Nevada Democratic Party’s plan to use a telephone call-in option to participate in February’s caucus.
The national party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee co-Chairman Jim Roosevelt thanked party officials in Nevada and Iowa, another early state that had hoped to use a telephone option, for their work in trying to be more inclusive. He stressed that the committee’s decision should not be taken as a failing by either state party, but rather as a byproduct of needed security decisions given Russian involvement in the 2016 electoral process.
Committee members reporting in from across the country echoed Roosevelt’s statements, laying the blame on an only recently understood cyber war rather than on any individual party.
Nevada still will offer early in-person caucusing and absentee voting options, to comply with the national party’s mandate to increase accessibility to the caucus process. (It was that mandate, in fact, that led the Nevada party to devise the telephone option in the first place.)
Artie Blanco, a Democratic National Committee member speaking on behalf of Nevada, praised both early states for getting as far as they did “…without any tangible help from the (Rules and Bylaws) board or the DNC.” She said she understood the cybersecurity concerns listed by the national party’s technology team and underscored the team’s determination that no technology yet exists to handle the scale of statewide voting while also maintaining election security.
Prior to the final vote, Roosevelt said he planned to work with the national party’s leadership to address the issue of cybersecurity for virtual caucusing on the national level. He said the national party will work with Nevada and Iowa in the hopes of finding a secure way to use telephone caucusing by the 2024 election.
Nevada’s caucus — third on the national nominating calendar and the first such event in the western United States — is slated for Feb. 22.
Contact Rory Appleton at rappleton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0276. Follow @RoryDoesPhonics on Twitter.
