Electionball Day!

In Nevada, the polls are super tight. So the Democratic caucus result there is anybody's guess. And likely it will continue to be for weeks afterward.

In the hours before Saturday’s Democratic caucuses, supporters of US Senator Bernie Sanders circulated messages asking each other to record caucus proceedings whenever possible. The Nevada Democratic Party also sent a letter to the campaigns, urging them not to spread misinformation about how the caucuses and delegate allocation works.

Also on Friday, the Nevada Secretary of State, Barbara Cegavske, expressed “concern” over Republicans who may attempt to participate in the Democratic caucuses by changing party affiliation. In theory, a Republican can register and caucus as a Democrat on Saturday, and the state’s system would not update before the person could participate GOP caucuses on Tuesday.

“It is a concern that a registered voter in Nevada might participate in both caucuses,” she said in a statement, adding dual caucus participants “may be subject” to a ban from participating in the next presidential nominating contest.

Finally, in the rare case of a tied caucus, Nevada Democrats have directed organizers to determine a winner by high-card draw.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, the Christopher Guest movie that is the Republican Primary continues to delight audiences. 

Two grown men running for president met in a storage closet last night.

The meeting, called by Ted Cruz in an attempt to mend fences with Ben Carson ahead of the South Carolina primary, was held on Thursday night before the Conservative Review convention. The two huddled in the unusual venue for nearly 20 to 25 minutes, as Carson’s Secret Service detail stood outside, according to a Republican operative who witnessed the strange scene.

Carson, whose campaign has spent the weeks after Iowa blasting Cruz for lying to voters in the Hawkeye State, agreed to meet him for five minutes, according to a source close to Carson’s campaign, to try to put to bed the issue of his dirty campaign tricks in Iowa, during which Cruz’s campaign told caucus-goers that Carson had dropped out of the race.

Carson’s campaign confirmed the meeting—which was was supposed to be short and off-the-record—and blamed the Cruz campaign for leaking the fact that it occurred in an attempt to rectify his public image.

 Also, this is South Carolina so naturally these this sort of thing is going to happen. 

Just hours before Republican voters were expected to head to the polls in South Carolina, Courageous Conservative Political Action Committee, a pro-Cruz group, was robo-calling voters and warning them that Donald Trump was an advocate for gay rights and would force "people to bake cakes and photograph gay weddings," BuzzFeed reported Friday night.

Not to mention, this sort of thing.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday spread an apparent hoax about Muslims being executed with bullets “dipped in pig’s blood.”

The real estate mogul told supporters at a rally in Charleston, S.C., about US General John Pershing executing dozens of Muslim prisoners in the Philippines in the early 20th century.

“He took 50 bullets and he dipped them in pig’s blood,” Trump said. “And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the fifty people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem.”

The story appears to a false, according to Snopes.com.

And those are the two guys who seem to leading nationally.

Meanwhile, Louisiana is about to join the fun. Both party primaries are scheduled for March 5 which means Early Voting opens today. You can find your Early Voting locations at the Sec. of State's website.

Update: Meant to include Oyster's latest on the Republican primary.  

Donald Trump has dominated the Republican race for the presidency for eight months straight. He's on the brink of winning the South Carolina primary after a debate where he frolicked in the taboo. 9/11 occurred on Dubya's watch. Planned Parenthood provides some 'wonderful' services. The Iraq War was a disaster. However factual, these are verboten topics in GOPworld. To flout the party line on any of them would spell doom for a traditional candidate.

Yet Trump— who enjoyed a big lead in the polls and had every conventional reason to take it easy during the debate— went out of his way to trample on GOP articles of faith.* And he did so looking very orange and angry. Yet it appears his apostasy won't hurt him. Why? How?

Go read the rest.