Nevada Republican officials confirmed Friday that presidential caucus-goers will be able to cast ballots at a special evening session on Feb. 4 at a private school in Las Vegas named after Sheldon Adelson, a key Newt Gingrich supporter.
Adelson, the billionaire chairman and CEO of Nevada-based Las Vegas Sands Corp. –- which owns the Venetian and Palazzo casino resorts –- and his wife, Miriam, each contributed $5 million to the pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future Super PAC this month.
Most Nevada caucuses are set to close by 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 4, but Republicans will be able to participate in an evening caucus meeting at the private school in Clark County, Nevada’s most populous county with a population of just under 2 million. That meeting will start at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.
Republican officials did not name the school, but the San Francisco Chronicle identified it as Adelson Educational Campus, a private Jewish school founded with supports from the Adelsons.
GOP officials said they are permitting the evening session to accommodate orthodox Jews, who observe the Sabbath, and other people with religious restrictions.
Nevada Republican Party Chairman Amy Tarkanian said the decision was made to hold the evening session at the school prior “to any of the Super PAC functioning going on. This just happened to be the location that had the [Adelson] name, unfortunately.”
“We are just trying to make sure all of the voices are heard and the people who would like to participate can participate,” Tarkanian said, “and that is how this came about.”
Texas congressman Ron Paul’s presidential campaign is calling the decision to hold the voting at the Adelson school “underhanded” and “completely unacceptable,” the Chronicle reported on its website Friday. A Paul campaign aide told the San Francisco newspaper that the campaign is “working with the Nevada State Republican Party to fix the situation, to either stop it completely or move the location to someplace other than Mr. Adelson’s private school, where he is able to do whatever he wants to promote a get out the vote event for the candidate of his choice.”
Dan Burdish, a Nevada campaign aide for Gingrich and the former executive director of the state’s Republican Party, said GOP officials have been discussing this issue for weeks and that voting has been held in schools in Nevada before and, “I have never seen it make a major difference.”
The state GOP is set to start releasing results on Twitter starting at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 4.
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