A Stitch in Haste

If someone thinks they can explain this, then feel free to give it a shot in the comments:

Nevada's state teachers union and six Las Vegas area residents filed a lawsuit late Friday that could make it harder for many members of the state's huge hotel workers union to vote in the hotly contested Jan. 19 Democratic caucus in Nevada.

Quick: Do you think the teachers union and the hotel workers union are endorsing the same candidate?

The 13-page lawsuit in federal district court here comes two days after the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Nevada endorsed Senator Barack Obama, a blow to Mrs. Clinton. ... The Nevada State Education Association has said it would not endorse any Democrat, but some of its top officials have endorsed Mrs. Clinton. The association's deputy executive director, Debbie Cahill, for instance, was a founding member of Senator Clinton's Nevada Women's Leadership Council.

Okay, that part is easy to understand: It's just the Vast Clinton Wing Conspiracy doing what it does best: Throwing fellow Democrats under the bus.

As for the rest:

The lawsuit argues that the Nevada Democratic Party's decision, decided late last year, to create at-large precincts inside nine Las Vegas resorts on caucus day violates the state's election laws and creates a system in which voters at the at-large precincts can elect more delegates than voters at other precincts. The lawsuit employs a complex mathematical formula to show that voters at the other 1,754 precincts would have less influence with their votes.

A casino is now capable of being an election district? And whatever happened to "absentee ballots"? Yet more evidence that the caucus system, if not unconstitutional, is unarguably stupid — and geared to benefit politicians rather than voters.

I pity the unfortunate federal judge who will actually have to wade into this hyperpartisan mathematical muck.