Nevada Casino Caucuses Face Court Hearing
The location of nine sites for Saturday's Nevada Democratic caucuses at Las Vegas Strip casinos has become a major battle point in the struggle to control the party between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. A federal judge has now annnounced a hearing on Thursday to determine the legitimacy of the casinos as voting places.
The Democratic Party established the polls at the casinos to help casino and hotel workers vote, even if their jobs keep them from reporting to normal locations. The arrangements were set last summer, with representatives from the various factions of the party in general agreement that efforts to keep those voters from being disenfranchised are a good thing.
However, since then, the Culinary Workers' Union has come out in support of Obama, and the casinos hosting caucuses are all union-organized hotels. Now the Clinton campaign and its allies seem to feel those sites are not such a good idea, after all. When asked by a Nevada reporter whether the casino voting was proper, Clinton replied, "I don't know."
The suit against the casino sites was brought by the state's teachers' union, considered to be favorable to Clinton. They alledge it is unfair to treat a certain group of voters differently than the rest, and that the system as it stands would allow the casino voters to send a disproportionate number of delegates to the state's nominating convention.
Meanwhile, Obama seemed unconcerned about the fairness of the voting procedures, simply noting that the Clintons want to "change the rules" because the union supported him rather than her.
While the teachers' union may have valid points, it certainly seems fishy that the complaints only arose once the union had come out in favor of a candidate. In 2000, the Democratic Party attempted to count votes in the Florida Presidential election by different methods, county by county, in desperate attempts to find a total that gave them victory, all the while shouting that the opponent was the one stealing the election. Now, clearly, the goal of the two leading Democrats in the country is to change the rules, alter the process, favor supporters and disenfranchise the rest, ignoring justice while trying to reach victory at any cost. Are these the best the Democrats truly have?
