Las Vegas voters line up Feb. 23, 2016, to attend a Republican Party caucus at Western High School in Las Vegas. The Nevada Republican Party is eschewing the state’s Republican presidential preference primary election set for Feb. 6 in favor of conducting its own presidential caucuses, like this one eight years ago. But just weeks before the Feb. 8 caucuses, Clark County School District administrators say state party officials haven’t secured permission to conduct any of the caucuses in district schools.
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The Clark County Republican Party has yet to receive approval to host its presidential caucuses early next month at numerous public schools across the Las Vegas area, the Sun has learned.
The list of caucus locations published on the Clark County GOP’s website consists almost entirely of Clark County School District campuses. However, a district spokesman said Wednesday that facility-use requests to utilize at least some of the sites had been denied and stressed that no sites had been approved for the caucuses.
The caucuses are scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Feb. 8.
The party, on its website, acknowledged that the location list was fluid. The Sun’s request for comment to the party wasn’t returned.
“Please note that our caucus locations list and map is constantly updating and changing as we work towards providing a dedicated Clark County version,” reads a note alongside the list, which also includes a city of Las Vegas recreation center, a Clark County recreation center, two churches, a country club and an Eagles lodge. “Expect to receive a comprehensive list of caucus sites in the upcoming communication.”
As of Wednesday morning, the caucus location list had 38 sites, 32 of which were CCSD schools.
The Nevada Legislature in 2021 voted to move the nominating process for the presidential elections from caucuses to state-run primary elections, but Republicans have resisted the change. They unsuccessfully challenged the new law in court claiming the primary would be less secure than the caucuses. Both the Republican and Democratic presidential preference primaries will be contested Feb. 6 in Nevada. Nevertheless, the Nevada State Republican Party has voted to continue with the caucuses and binding the state’s delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention to the winner of the caucuses, not the primary.
The convention, which is scheduled for July 15-18 in Milwaukee, is where the party’s national nominee is ultimately selected.
The decision to go ahead with the GOP caucuses has brought confusion for many of the state’s active 552,994 registered Republican voters, most of whom will be receiving sample presidential preference primary ballots from the Nevada secretary of state featuring Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor. Noticeably missing from the ballot is former President Donald Trump, the perceived front-runner for the nomination.
Candidates can’t participate in both the primary and caucus, the state party has said, making it easier for Trump to secure Nevada’s GOP delegates for the third consecutive presidential election cycle because candidates must compete in the caucuses to be eligible for the state’s delegates.
In addition to Trump, candidates participating in the caucuses include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Former New Jersey governor and 2016 presidential candidate Chris Christie is also on the caucus ballot, although he ended his campaign Wednesday.
The primary system was approved in the 2021 Nevada Legislature with the signing of Assembly Bill 126 by former Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat.
The primary will be conducted by the secretary of state’s office in conjunction with each of the state’s 17 county clerks, using the typical mail, early and in-person Election Day options.
The presidential preference primary has 127 vote centers, according to the Clark County Elections Department. Seventy-two of these sites are CCSD schools (of those 72 schools, 11 are also listed as caucus sites).
CCSD uses a third-party booking site to schedule its facility use to outside groups — Little League or churches, for instance. A Sun review of the online portal showed availability at numerous schools the Republicans are touting as caucus precincts.
The CCSD Athletics calendar shows prep sports events at the same time as the scheduled caucus times at at least two schools posted as caucus sites. That means numerous residents would be on campus when students are still present, presenting a distinct safety issue.
The state doesn’t pay CCSD to host elections at its sites. And Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar — the state’s top election official — told the Sun that despite the GOP caucuses being a privately administered event, it is a part of the democratic process and he takes no issue with public facilities being used at no cost.
“This is about the voter, and whatever makes it the easiest and accessible for the voter I have no problem with,” Aguilar said, “I think that’s the responsibility of government assets, to be used for the benefit of the community, for the benefit of the taxpayer. And that taxpayer may be a member of a major party.”
