Nevada Democrats to rely on paper-based early caucus voting

FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018 file photo, voters head to the polls at the Enterprise Library in Las Vegas. Nevadas Democratic Party has announced new paper-based balloting for its early vote starting Saturday as it scrambles to reconfigure plans and avoid tech problems and reporting delays that mired Iowas first-in-the-nation caucuses. The party dumped its original plan to have people cast early caucus votes with an app downloaded on iPads. (AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz) (Joe Buglewicz, Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Nevada’s Democratic Party has announced new paper-based balloting for its early vote starting Saturday as it scrambles to reconfigure plans and avoid tech problems and reporting delays that mired Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

The party, which dumped its original plan to have people cast early caucus votes with an app downloaded on iPads, is working to simplify the process and build in “additional redundancies” that minimize errors, according to a memo from executive director Alana Mounce released Tuesday.

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Volunteers will use iPads loaded with a PDF of the Nevada voter roll to check in voters who show up to participate in four days of early voting, according to Mounce's memo. Each voter will be given a card with the voter registration ID number and a PIN, both of which the voter will enter when checking in online via a Google form.

Voters will then fill out paper ballots ranking their top choices for the Democratic presidential nominee. Paper ballots will be collected and taken to processing hubs, where they’ll be scanned to read results.

Early vote results will be kept secret until the main caucuses have started on the afternoon of Feb. 22, and any early votes cast will be added to those made in person at caucuses.

The memo does not address how the party plans to share the early vote results with volunteers leading more than 2,000 precinct caucuses on Feb. 22, the main voting day. Nevada had originally planned to have volunteers use an app similar to the one used last week in Iowa, created by the same firm, to share that info and tabulate final results.

The Nevada Democratic Party has not offered any timeline for providing more details.

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