Nevada prepares for caucuses

Nevada will offer the country its first official glimpse on Saturday of whom Democratic voters in the West want as their presidential candidate. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the front-runner with 25 percent of the vote, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal/AARP Nevada poll from last week.

Is Nevada going to be like Iowa? Nevada’s Democratic Party initially planned to use the same reporting software that gummed up the Iowa caucuses. Party leaders have since decided on using a Google web form on Apple iPads to tabulate and report results. Precincts will relay the reporting data by paper or with the Google web form. About 70,000 Nevadans already made their preferences known to the party in four days of early voting from last Saturday through Tuesday. Incorporating those votes into the in-person caucus results on Saturday may complicate the process. Party officials said they might not release the unofficial results right away if speed comes at the cost of accuracy.

The Nevada Republican Party decided not to hold caucuses this year and to give all of its delegates to President Donald Trump at this summer’s Republican National Convention.

Dig deeper: Read Jamie Dean’s report about the Iowa caucus results debacle.