Trump's absence on the Nevada primary ballot fuels a 'calamity' among voters

The Nevada Republican presidential primary has long been fraught with conflict over the prospect of holding two contests in one week, two days apart, with different outcomes.

Now, many voters are signaling that they're confused — and angry.

Driving the bulk of the confusion is the absence of former President Donald Trump’s name on the state primary ballot.

Nevada elections and party officials have, over the last several weeks, fielded thousands of calls from voters who have received ballots in the mail for the Feb. 6 state primary, not realizing Trump is competing only in a Republican caucus two days later, according to officials with local GOP parties, the state and a voting rights group.

Posts have been populating on social media with voters asking why Trump's name was missing from their ballots. Many floated false conspiracy theories. 

Trump is not on the ballot because he did not file for the state election. He is expected to easily win the caucuses and claim all of Nevada's 26 delegates.

This is the first time Nevada is experiencing the dual contests. The shift happened after a Democratic-led state Legislature changed the law, eliminating state-run caucuses after the 2020 election. The state Republican Party nevertheless decided to hold a caucus. It has decried the state-run primary, saying that it is a waste of taxpayer money and that it is suspicious of the possibility of voter fraud. 

Amid the flood of calls, some GOP leaders say they’re telling voters to cast a ballot, but instead of picking Nikki Haley — the only major candidate listed — they're telling them to select the "none of these candidates" option. They’re then encouraging them to caucus for Trump. 

One Republican leader didn’t exactly hide his disdain for Haley — who has visited the state only once since last May.

“We tell them there’s three things you can do with your ballot: Write ‘none of these candidates,’ or you can put it in the shredder, or you can blow your nose with it,” Bruce Parks, chair of the Washoe County Republican Party, said of the mail-in ballots of the state-run contest. Washoe is the second-most populous county in Nevada, and Parks said he’s fielded some 1,000 phone calls in the last week from Republicans distressed over their ballots. 

Conventional wisdom is that Haley will easily win the state-run primary, because she is the marquee candidate on the ballot. As of Tuesday, more than 40,000 Republicans had already voted in the state primary election, according to the secretary of state.

But in Nevada, there's also an option to vote “none of these candidates.” If that were to somehow log more votes than Haley — a phenomenon that’s happened in the past in Nevada — the former South Carolina governor would still be deemed the winner, but the public vote totals could be embarrassing.

That was an outcome Parks shrugged off.

“Nikki Haley sent a clear message to everybody in Nevada that she did not care about Nevada,” he said. Haley and several former candidates have said the caucus is cooked for Trump because of the party's strong ties to the former president.

A win for Haley, however, could garner her some positive media attention even though she wouldn't win any delegates.

A Nevada secretary of state spokesperson said one-third of all the calls the office has received since the beginning of the year have been concerning the caucus and/or Trump, and it’s been a top issue in emails it’s received so far this year. The standard response is that Trump did not file in the primary and is participating in a party-run caucus.