The Nevada GOP’s private presidential nominating parties, also known as the Republican presidential caucuses, are a sham designed to sow confusion and rig the process for a single candidate.

Donald Trump’s lap dog, Michael McDonald, is responsible for planning the caucuses and has done everything in his power to ensure his idol can’t be branded a “loser” in the Silver State. He’s doing it in plain sight, just as he did when he attempted to pass off himself and others as fake electors and signed fake election certificates in 2020. He’s been indicted for fraud for that last stunt. It’s a sign of how low the GOP has sunk that a man who knowingly tried to fake election results is now designing his party’s elections.

In 2020, former Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske—a lifelong Republican—certified Joe Biden as the legitimate winner of Nevada. When Trump baselessly claimed election fraud, he was given his day in court and an opportunity to prove electoral and voting irregularities. He failed miserably.

Carson City District Court Judge James Russell found that there was “no credible or reliable evidence that the 2020 General Election in Nevada was affected by fraud,” the evidence presented had “little to no value” and the Trump campaign “did not prove under any standard of proof that any illegal votes were cast and counted, or legal votes were not counted at all, for any other improper or illegal reason.”

Since then, knowing that they lack the support of most Nevadans, Trump and McDonald have worked tirelessly to silence voters, eliminate the GOP presidential preference primary elections and host private nominating parties, stacked with Trump loyalists, that can override the will of the voters as expressed at the ballot box.

To accomplish this goal, the state GOP forced candidates to choose between safe and secure government-administered primaries or private caucuses by inventing a rule that candidates could not appear on both ballots.

The result is that Trump and other candidates like Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who dropped out, aren’t on the primary ballot, and Nikki Haley, the only serious challenger to Trump left in the race as of press time, will not appear on the caucus ballot. The fact that the GOP removed DeSantis from the caucus ballot after he dropped out of the race on Sunday shows that it could still include Haley; the party simply doesn’t want Republican voters to have a choice.

Limiting voter choice in the caucuses makes sense given that the party declared that the ballots of Republican voters who participate in the primaries would be irrelevant and that all delegates would be awarded based upon the outcome of the private caucuses.

To control who accesses the caucuses, the GOP scheduled them on a date and time that leaves thousands of working-class and family-oriented Nevadans unable to participate, including swing shift voters in Clark County’s massive hospitality industry. Party leaders also disqualified people who didn’t register at least 30 days in advance of the caucus and are prohibiting Nevadans from caucusing anywhere outside of their home precinct. Even more troublesome is that both the caucus rules and precinct locations are subject to change without notice.

If all of that weren’t enough, there is no guarantee that your vote will be counted.

As the Las Vegas Weekly’s Shannon Miller reported, the GOP’s only apparent security measure at the caucuses is a voter ID requirement that the staff at the Weekly and the Las Vegas Sun circumvented in a matter of minutes by ordering a fake ID in the name of state Republican Party Chairman, Michael McDonald.

By using this fake ID, we could have arrived at Mr. McDonald’s precinct and caucused in his name. Unlike the state-administered primary elections, which have established processes for investigating and curing disputed or duplicate ballots, no such processes exist at the GOP’s private nominating party. Moreover, because caucuses happen in real time, there is nothing that could be done to change or undo what we did before being discovered. Adding insult to injury, it’s unclear whether using a fake ID or some other method of infiltrating a private nominating party would even qualify as voter fraud under existing state statutes.

Consider that for a moment.

Voting irregularities or disputes in the primaries can be investigated by the Secretary of State and cured by the Justice Department and a court of law at any time until July 15, when the nominating convention begins in Milwaukee. Deliberate attempts to vote illegally are a clear felony under Nevada law.

On the other hand, if it is later discovered that McDonald, Trump or anyone else massively manipulated the outcome of the Nevada GOP’s private caucuses, not only is it not likely a crime under current election law, but there is no means of curing or correcting the outcome.

This is an absurdly insecure caucus.

This isn’t hypothetical. Remember, McDonald is a proud member of Trump’s MAGA mob, which has already demonstrated that they care more about “owning the libs” and falsifying election results than preserving democracy. He already tried to pass off fake electors and signed his name on fake election certificates—we know because we used the signature from his fake election certificate to ensure the signature on our fake ID would match the real one. Of course, matching the signature is largely irrelevant given that, to our knowledge, the GOP doesn’t have access to the signature files used to verify voter identities.

Moreover, none of this chaos, uncertainty or lack of security was imposed upon the Nevada Republican Party. Rather, its leaders knowingly fought to create chaos and opportunities for manipulation by choosing to host a private party-run nominating event. They did so to ensure Trump would win before a single ballot was cast.

Moderate Republicans and members of the GOP who believe in a functioning democracy and the right of the people to elect their leaders should take heed and refuse to participate in the sham caucus. Instead, they should participate in the state-administered primary elections occurring two days earlier, on February 6.

Unlike the private caucuses, the primaries are a direct and proven secure reflection of the will of the Nevada voters. That’s why duly elected legislators representing a substantial majority of Nevada’s voters implemented primaries in the first place.

Primaries can’t be manipulated by made up rules that stack the deck in favor of one candidate or by excluding otherwise eligible voters. Primaries also have established mechanisms to ensure that every vote is counted and that no vote is counted more than once. And they have clear laws protecting against voter fraud.

By participating in the state-administered primaries, Nevada’s Republicans can send a clear message to the state party that they will not allow their voices to be silenced or their votes to go uncounted by the obvious maneuvers of liars and crooks.

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