Saturday, January 19, will be a historic day. For the first time in American history, Latinos will have a major voice in picking the presidential nominees. For the first time, the state of Nevada, with a large Latino population, will hold an early and therefore influential caucus.

I’ll be traveling to the state to provide some first-hand accounts of the efforts there to reach out to the Latino community and get them to participate by the Democratic Party, the unions, and outside organizations. And I’ll be attending a caucus where there is expected to be high Latino turnout to see how successful those efforts are. But first some background to set the stage.

Nevada has had caucuses since the 1960s, but they have always come late, and have been low-turnout affairs. Less than 1 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2004 caucus. (Perhaps this low level of participation is simply part of Nevada’s character—even in the general election in 2004, Nevada ranked forty-second in voter turnout.)

This year the Democratic Party decided it was time to give Latino voters a strong voice, and it picked Nevada as the staging ground to do so, moving its nominating contest to earlier on the calendar. The Nevada Democratic Party has already gone to great lengths to try to get Latinos to participate (which I’ll be reporting on later in the week). Perhaps most significantly, the party created nine at-large precincts at the major hotel casinos so that the 4,000 or more shift workers per site—largely Latinos—who could not otherwise take the time off to go to their home precincts could participate in the caucus. The host hotels are the Bellagio, Luxor (where I’ll be in attendance), the Mirage, the Rio, Caesar’s Palace, the Paris, the Flamingo, Wynn Las Vegas, and New York, New York.

The Latino power potential is significant. The total population of Nevada is about 2.5 million, of which 610,000 are Latino, and out of that, 475,000 are Mexican. Nearly one-quarter of Nevadans —24.4 percent—are Latino, compared to 14.8 percent nationally. In Las Vegas itself, 30.6 percent of residents are Latino—174,203 out of a population of 569,753, with about 137,000 of those being Mexican.

At the same time, it’s important not to overstate the case of Latino voting power in Nevada. Only half of Latino Nevadans may be of voting age, and only half of that 300,000 in 2004 were citizens. Of those citizens, just 83,000 were registered to vote, accounting for only 12 percent of the eligible voters. However, that number is likely to rise considerably this year, and even relatively small numbers in a very low-turnout contest can have major impact.

The Nevada Democratic Party has modeled its process directly on the Iowa caucus. Participants must show up at one of 520 designated caucus locations at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday and publicly stand in groups representing each of the candidates in order to voice their preference. All participants must be registered to vote in the precinct as a Democrat, and a list of registered Democrats will be available at the caucuses. But, most importantly, if a voter is not on the list and not registered to vote, he or she may register as a Democrat at the caucus. This may boost the number of eligible Latino voters that are registered significantly, something that could have repercussions in the state in the general election. In addition, Republicans and Independents can fill out a registration card, switch parties, and participate. Given the tendency in states so far for turnout to be much higher in the Democratic contests, the influence of these voters could be important. (By contrast, Republicans must be registered as Republicans thirty days ahead of time to participate in their caucus.) Seventeen-year-olds who will be eighteen in time for the general can register and participate.

The politics of the caucus have become fascinating in recent days. Barack Obama was endorsed by the 60,000 member Culinary Union that represents many of the hotel and casino workers, some 45 percent of whom are Latino. At the same time, Clinton has the assistance of some other unions, has been actively courting Latino Culinary Union members despite the union’s endorsement of Obama, and has the support of much of the Latino Democratic establishment in the state. Both candidates are spending money on Spanish language radio ads and have bilingual organizers working the state. And the image of campaigning on the Vegas strip and caucusing at casinos is already attracting huge media attention.

When Nevada was first chosen as the state to have an early caucus in an effort to include Latinos, I was skeptical. Given all of the ways voters can be disenfranchised by a caucus in general (which I have written about at length), I figured it would be particularly difficult to mobilize Latinos who do often work on Saturdays, may not be fluent in English, might be reluctant to cast a very public vote, and might otherwise have trouble navigating the caucus system. However, in following the preparations that the Nevada Democratic Party and others have been made over the past several weeks and months, I am inclined to be optimistic. Indeed, I expect that in many ways, the Nevada caucus may serve as a model to follow in turning out not just Latino voters, but all voters.

Tova Andrea Wang is a Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation. View the entire series here.