Media fact checkers are going to get extremely tired of having to explain over and over why former President Donald J. Trump is not on Nevada’s mail-in primary ballot. 

Last week, outrage erupted among poorly informed Trump supporters when a potential voter in rural Nevada posted a picture of her primary ballot to X, clearly confounded by his absence on the ticket. 

Describing the omission of his name as “criminal” and declaring “We cannot allow this to stand,” the image quickly went viral among ardent Trump fans on social media who assumed the Nevada ballot was “proof” of election malfeasance. 

Of course, there was only one problem: The reason Trump wasn’t on the ballot was because he never filed for the primary. And the reason he never filed was because the state GOP, in all its brilliance and political savvy, is moving forward with its own separate caucus that prohibits candidates from taking part in the primary. 

In other words, Nevada’s ballot is missing the bulk of top-name candidates because the GOP wanted it that way. Who could have possibly guessed such a plan would have stirred a bit of confusion and anger among “low information” voters in the Republican ranks? 

Well … pretty much everyone, as it turns out. 

Gov. Joe Lombardo rightly condemned the decision to move forward with the caucus in October. Some Republican members of the Assembly have also lamented the dual system facing voters this year. In fact, pretty much everyone who wasn’t part of the party cabal trying to rig the system in favor of Trump has pointed out the pure insanity of moving forward with an unnecessary and illogical caucus just two days after the state-run primary election. 

As outrage grew rapidly among Trump supporters on X over the misunderstanding, a precious few Republicans swooped in to try to correct the record. However, the sort of long-form Tweet needed to explain things simply doesn’t carry the kind of visceral punch needed to go viral. For many, the truth simply isn’t as sexy — or as retweetable — as a post that hints at some sort of “deep state” conspiratorial plot to undermine the former president. 

Consequently, confusion will persist among those voters who pay scant attention to political happenings but still consider themselves emotionally “invested” in the upcoming election. 

Local news stations are already running segments trying to explain to upset Republican voters why their primary ballots are missing the names of their preferred candidates — but let’s be honest: If voters aren’t already aware of the GOP’s caucus debacle, it’s unlikely a few excellent explainers (such as this one from The Nevada Independent) will bridge their knowledge gap. 

It doesn’t take a psychic with tarot cards to predict such confusion will further radicalize a certain subsect of political fanatics who feed off manufactured outrage and misinformation. However, it’s also going to disenfranchise large swaths of more reasonable Republican voters who would have otherwise enjoyed a legitimate opportunity to weigh in on which candidate should receive the party’s delegates. 

Not only will a great many decent Republicans find themselves confused by the omitted names on Nevada’s primary ballot, but many will also be unable to take the time to trudge down to a caucus location Feb. 8 to cast their vote in person. 

Even those who are no fans of universal mail-in ballots should be capable of recognizing the in-person requirement of the caucus will, naturally, reduce voter involvement and severely limit participation. Indeed, we have relatively recent history to support such predictions.

In 1996, the Republican Party opted for a presidential preference primary election that exclusively used mail-in ballots. (Importantly, 2024’s primary will include in-person and early voting as well.) That mid-’90s primary saw a whopping 140,637 Nevadans participate — dwarfing the party’s largest-ever caucus in 2016 that drew a mere 75,000 voters. 

In other words, despite 187,000 fewer voters in the Republican Party at the time, the 1996 primary saw 65,000 more Nevada Republicans make their voice heard in the nomination process. And it’s hard to imagine that massive spike in participation was due to some highly charismatic candidate generating unprecedented levels of enthusiasm among voters … It was, after all, Bob Dole. 

Given the way current GOP leadership has been unofficially campaigning for the former president — including chairman Michael McDonald urging voters to caucus for Trump — a lower participation rate might well be the entire point. 

There’s been no shortage of individuals alleging the caucus has been designed to give Trump an advantage. And it’s easy to see why: The alternative explanation would be that party leadership is merely unimaginably incompetent for having not anticipated the confusion, discord and discontent its decision to move forward with a caucus would incite. 

Intentional or not, it doesn’t change the fact that things are going to get messy for the GOP over the course of the next few weeks — keeping political fact-checkers covering Nevada quite busy. 

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him at SchausCreative.com or on Twitter at @schausmichael.