Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

As I mentioned a few days ago, I voted (by mail) in Nevada's Democratic Presidential Preference Primary.

Because at least one person was confused by this, here's a clarification:

( Primary Neepery )

The Nevada BallotTrax system sent me email that I received to day confirming that they received my mail ballot.

I hope this clarifies any questions anyone may have had.

I didn't get to sleep in that much because I wanted to get breakfast at the Wigwam before heading off to volunteer at the 2020 Nevada Democratic caucus, where I was a precinct chair. Lisa decided to join me at breakfast (she's rarely awake at that time), but because she's a registered independent, she couldn't participate in the caucus.

( Chair, Not Captain )

After my experience four years ago, I volunteered to help with the 2020 caucus because I was not all that pleased with the organization of the event. I don't mean the results — I mean the logistics and management of the event. After participating in initial online "Caucus 101" training and subsequent in-person training, I applied for the Temporary Precinct Chair appointment for Precinct 40, which is where I live in Fernley. (Lyon County is divided into forty precincts, of which mine is the northernmost.)

( Why 'Temporary'? )

According to the instructions we received, TPCs were asked to arrive at East Valley Elementary School by 8 AM, with the Site Lead (in charge of overall organization) arriving at 7:30. I therefore arrived about 7:45. To my surprise, I was the first person there except for the custodian at the school who had opened the building and was wondering where the organizers were. I later learned that there was a big traffic accident in Reno/Sparks on eastbound I-80, and therefore our site lead, who was responsible for transporting the caucus materials from the party headquarters near Reno Airport, had gotten stuck in traffic.

Other TPCs began to filter in along with a few other volunteers as well as precinct captains (see my note above) and other partisan organizers, and we took it upon ourselves to start doing some basic physical arrangement of the school's multi-purpose room prior to the site lead's arrival. The custodian showed us where the racks of folding chairs were and she told us we could roll the racks in to the hall, which we did. We unloaded two full racks and put a third rack on standby. We weren't sure how many people would be here compared to four years ago. While interest in the caucus is much higher this time, especially with so many remaining candidates still in the race, the introduction of early voting was a wild card.

( How SF Conrunning Skills Helped the Nevada Caucus )

After completing check-in and precinct chair briefing, the Site Lead got everyone's attention, thanked everyone for their patience and for coming, and started reading letters from senior Nevada elected officals, starting with governor Steve Sisolak. After he finished, I offered to read the letter from Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto. Our site lead read the letter from Senator Jackie Rosen (he works for her office), and the other PCs read letters from Nevada's three Democratic members of Congress.

With the pep rally portion done, the Precinct Chairs went to our precincts and called them individually to order. I banged my gavel, introduced myself, and started reading from the scripts provided to us by the Nevada Democratic Party. Rather than go through the process of ayes and nays for what is generally a routine item, I asked if there was any objection to me serving as Permanent Chair. There was none. I asked for and recieved a volunteer to act as Precinct Secretary. I'm grateful for her help, because while she wrote the results of intermediate counts, I had to either enter them into the iPad or read off the results we got from the iPad.

The way the caucus works is that initially everyone in the caucus forms an "initial alignment" of their most-preferred candidate. After the first round, only "viable" candidates survive. Viability depends on the size of the precinct. Our precinct was to elect five delegates to the county convention in April, and thus viablity meant you had to poll at least 15% of the total votes cast, including early votes.

After entering the in-person voters on the paper sheet and the iPad, I used the iPad to retrieve the results of the advance voting. Had the iPad malfunctioned, we also had the advance voting results on paper, but all seven iPads worked as advertised. There were a total of 29 people (in person and advance) voting in our precinct (about a 15% turnout, I think), and thus viability was 29 * 0.15 = 4.35, with all fractions rounded up, and thus viability required at least 5 votes.

( Chasing Viability and Cutting the Cards )

I and the other precinct chairs started cleaning up our paperwork, putting forms in the correct envelopes, and tidying up generally. We asked those people who hadn't immediately run for the exits as soon as final alignments had been reached to help fold and store chairs and tables, take down signs, and clean up the room.

We invited anyone who wanted to do so to take pictures of the posters and final precinct counts. I was so busy that I did not get a picture of any other precinct but our neighboring 39.

The base instructions said that the precinct chairs were supposed to both phone in and e-mail pictures of our precincts to party HQ, but the site lead offered to do all of them, so we brought all seven sets of paperwork to him, he reviewed it, took the pictures, sent the e-mails, made the calls, and would later after we finsished cleaning up transport the original documents including the voter cards back to party headquarters in Reno.

During this time I had to divert from my main task of clean-up (mostly done anyway) to help one of our precinct's voters, who was experiencing both physical (from too much standing) and emotional (from having her first preference get elimintated) pain. I retrieved a chair from one of the racks and sat with her while she poured out her frustration. I also loaned her my phone so she could call her son to come get her. When she felt able to walk again, I helped her outside, with her holding my right arm while I carried a chair in my left as we went out to the curb. I set the chair up for her and continued to stay with her and listen to her until her son came. (Besides just being a good person, this sort of thing is part of what we should live when we say we want to hold an accessible and inclusive caucus respectful of all of our members.) I of course returned the chair. I do wish I'd been able to go grab my Jacaru hat, as it was surprisingly sunny and I got even redder than usual, especially on the top of my head.

After helping the site lead move boxes to his car, we made one final pass through the room, where I took down a couple of stray signs we'd left behind. Note to self: if I do this again, bring a roll of blue tape, as the masking tape supplied by the party was poor quality and hard to use and you shouldn't use ordinary masking tape on the painted surfaces anyway. One final task: I helped the custodian reset some of the tables to the way they will be used on Monday morning so that she could finish her work and go home.

And then we really were done, about 3 PM. Not counting the custodian who unlocked and locked the building, I ended up being the first person in and the last person out. That does remind me of a number of fannish functions on which I've volunteered.

This caucus did go much more smoothly than the one four years ago, and I think the advance voting made a big difference. The "caucus calculator" on the iPads worked, and it made the counting easier, and we never had to go to the backup plans, but I'm still glad that it wasn't the only way we could have done the election. It still could have gone better. Even though it means I'd have to be up even earlier to make two trips back and forth to Reno, I'm tempted to volunteer to be a site lead. Having seen how it works, it doesn't seem any more complicated than a lot of the conventions on which I have worked.

I'm tired from the long day, but I'm very satisfied with the results organizationally, even if my first choice candidate did not make the cut in my precinct. I'm glad that I was able to lend my organizational skills to it, and I got a lot of thanks from many people including the site lead, my fellow PCs, and lots of the voters. Go Precinct 40!

I've now gone through refresher/update training for caucus volunteers including temporary precinct chairs such as myself. They made it clear up front that they did scrap the original plans to us a phone app loaded to individuals' smartphones and instead will use a "caucus calculator" pre-loaded onto iPads that the precinct chairs will be issued when we check in on caucus day. The calculator makes it much easier to do the math, but it can be done by hand, including hand-counting the advance instant-runoff ballots by hand if necessary. Counting IRV ballots like that is tedious, but not all that difficult for me. I understand how much trouble it might be for people who haven't been living with it for thirty years like I have been. This makes me glad I volunteered; the party needs my skills!

The system is multiply backed up. The technology parts (the iPads) make it easier, but there are paper forms at all of the steps. The results of the counts are written on posters that everyone can see, and a representative from each viable preference group (voters for a given candidate) signs the poster in the view of everyone. We take photos of the posters and encourage anyone else who wants to do so to take photos. There are other backups in the process as well. As I've said multiple times before, I much prefer an accurate result that takes a little longer than a super-fast result that is wrong and has to be corrected.

I am quoted today in a news story ultimately sourced from the Washington Post, but available here and elsewhere. One of the two reporters to whom the story is credited tracked me down and asked me about the Nevada caucus. The quotes are about right. Note that I speak only for myself, not for the party, and only about my own experiences, which may not be the same as those of other people.

It does help me personally that I can count instant-runoff/ranked-choice ballots without difficulty, in case there is any need to do so. Caucus math is a type of IRV/RCV. People who voted in advance of the caucus will have their votes first tallied by their first preferences, grouped with those people who caucus in person. After the first grouping, if there are non-viable groups (you need to poll at least 15% to be considered a viable candidate), the second and subsequent preferences will count along with those people who initially caucused for a non-viable candidate. The members of the non-viable groups can either regroup among themselves to form a viable group, or join with other viable groups. ("Uncommitted" is considered a candidate for this purpose.) If you caucused for a viable candidate or if your advance vote is grouped with a viable candidate, no further preferences are necessary, and you stay with your initial group. After the initial round of voting and the redistribution of preferences, you should end up with nothing but viable candidates.

I did sit in on the first of what I expect to be two training webinars today. This one focused on the advance caucus voting. I'll be voting early so that my vote will count in my own precinct without me having to take a partisan position while presiding (assuming my precinct does agree to elect me from Temporary Precinct Chair to Precinct Chair). I also hope that my precinct will send me to the county convention as one of our precinct's delegates. I have no desire to plump for the state or national conventions, however; it conflicts with Westercon and Worldcon.