Presidential caucuses will take place in February

With the exception of the Judicial candidate filing period, the first official event of the 2016 election season will happen in February when the two major parties hold their Nevada precinct caucuses.

Judicial filing opened Monday with quiet filings by two Supreme Court and three Court of Appeals incumbents.

The caucuses are expected to draw a lot of more attention. They are narrowly focused on the presidential race. All other races get sorted out in the June 14 primary elections. Nevada once had a presidential primary but lawmakers voted years ago to go instead with the caucus system.

The Democrats will caucus Feb. 20, the Republicans on Feb. 23.

The caucuses are for the party faithful to gather and elect delegates to the county conventions that happen in April. The county conventions then send delegates to the state convention in May where national delegates are apportioned out to the different presidential candidates.

Republicans will hold county conventions on April 9 for their county conventions. Their state convention is set May 14-15.

Democrats have scheduled their county conventions for April 2, followed by their state convention, also May 14-15.

While some states are winner-take-all, Nevada’s parties both award delegates proportionally to the different candidates and both parties bind those delegates to vote for their designated candidate on the first ballot.

Democrats have a total of 43 delegates and three alternates, Republicans 30 Nevada delegates to the national conventions in July — 15 At-large, 12 Congressional District and three automatic delegates.

After delegates to the county conventions are chosen, those in attendance submit proposed issues for inclusion in the party platform.

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Judges file between now and Jan. 15. The purpose for their early filing is to cut off collection of contributions for judges who are unopposed. Historically that has been the majority of judicial races in Nevada.

There are two Nevada Supreme Court Justices up for re-election in 2016: Jim Hardesty and Ron Parraguirre. Neither is expected to have a strong opponent.

All three seats on the state’s Intermediate Appellate Court are up for election for the first time. The existing members were appointed in January 2015 after the court was created and must now run to keep the positions. They are Abi Silver, Jerome Tao and Michael Gibbons.

The Douglas County district court seat Gibbons left to join the appeals court is also up for election.

Filing for all other candidates runs from March 7 through March 18. That is before the county conventions.

Those candidates also need to file contribution and expense reports throughout the campaign season. That begins with the annual report required of candidates for 2015 due Jan. 15. All must file C&E reports on May 24, June 10 and Oct. 18 of this year and Jan. 15 of 2017.

As mentioned above, the primary elections are June 14, but early voting begins May 28 and ends June 10. Absentee ballots can be turned in as late as primary day. Before that, however, there are several key dates to remember:

May 10 is the day when sample ballots are issued for the primary.

May 14 the deadline to register to vote for primary by mail.

May 24 is the deadline to register to vote in person at the county clerk’s office for the primary.

June 21 is the last day for ballot questions to submit signatures to Nevada’s county clerks to try qualify a state initiative or referendum for the November ballot. County clerks have until July 11 to file a verified state ballot question with the Secretary of State’s office. For a county referendum, the deadline is July 1.

Oct. 8 is the final day to register for the general by mail.

Oct.18 the absolute last day to register in person.

Oct. 22 through Nov. 4 is early voting for the general election.

Nov. 8 is general election day.