In the run-up to the Nevada caucuses, supporters of Hillary Clinton sued the Democratic Party of Nevada, claiming that the allocation of delegates formula gave disproportionate weight to voters at the at-large casino caucuses where the Culinary Union, which endorsed Obama, had many of its members. It turns out that the teachers union that brought the suit was right to be concerned about the allocation process, but focused on the wrong part. It wasn’t the formula applied to the casinos that they should have been worried about, it was the disproportionate weight that the system gave rural areas. Because Obama did well in rural parts of Nevada, which get more delegates per voter (as is the case in Iowa as well), he ended up with more delegates—thirteen, as compared to Clinton’s twelve—even though Clinton won the popular vote.

In the greatest of ironies, Clinton was the one who was advantaged by the allocation plan applied to the casinos. Under the complex formula, if any casino caucus, for example, had less than 400 voters, there would be a five-to-one ratio of voters to delegates for that caucus, as opposed to a fifty-to-one ratio in the rest of the county. Contrary to expectations, Clinton won the casino caucuses, and almost none of them had turnout over 400.

What was lost in this whole dispute was some of the important voting rights issues raised by the case. This was not just a simple matter of the teachers and Clinton allies trying to disenfranchise voters more likely to vote for Obama, although that may have played a role. There were really competing voting rights values at stake. Needless to say, the dispute would never have occurred and the choice between voting rights principles never would have been necessary had this been a primary rather than a caucus.

The reason the party established the casino caucuses was, and is, a worthy one: to encourage the participation of a traditionally marginalized and under-represented group, Latino voters. Huge numbers of Latinos are shift workers at the hotels, and they would not have been able to return home to participate in a caucus at their home precinct. The briefs of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Nevada both point to this as the purpose of the delegate selection plan. The teachers union argued that (1) it was unfair to have a caucus at the worksites of some voters, but not others, who also might have to work at the time of the caucus; and (2) the possibility that a disproportionate number of delegates would be given to the casino caucuses diluted the voting rights of other voters.

Two sets of voting rights values were at odds in this lawsuit: the goal of increasing participation of minority voters, and the right to equal representation. As the party pointed out, legally a caucus involves no state action, so as a constitutional matter there is not likely to be any obligation to ensure equality of representation. But from a pure voting rights values perspective, this is not such an easy call to make. Both sides have a point. The reason the Democratic Party chose Nevada as an early nominating contest site was to highlight Latino voters, a growing group that has never had a meaningful voice in the nominating process. On the other hand, was it fair that only some working people would have easy access to the vote and not others? Was it right that allocation at the casinos was based on turnout, giving them a disproportionate number of delegates representing them?

At the hearing, ruling from the bench, the judge came down on the side of the party’s goal of maximizing Latino turnout. “The national party says we want to increase political participation in under-represented groups. I don’t think it is up for me to upset that,” said U.S. District Judge James Mahan. “It is something that the parties decide.”

But I think what really made this an easy call was the timing of the lawsuit. The Nevada Democratic Party plan had been known for months. The lawsuit was brought just days before the caucuses, and just after the Culinary Union endorsed Obama. This was the piece that tipped the scale. There has already been persistent confusion about the caucus process in Nevada, and particularly in Las Vegas. Shutting down the hotel caucuses or re-jiggering the plan at the last minute would have caused much disenfranchisement, so much that it far out-weighed the alleged diminution in voting power of non-casino voters.

Let this case serve as another piece of evidence supporting a goal I have been advocating for the past several months: the abolition of the caucus. The fact that it ended up being the rural vote the skewed the vote just underscores the lack of sense the caucuses make. Even the judge in the case made the somewhat humorous remark, “This isn’t an election, it’s a caucus.”

If Nevada had a primary instead of a caucus, workers that had to work on the day of the election could vote at their usual polling location early in the morning or the evening, or they could vote absentee. They would not be at the mercy of their bosses. And we would not have had the troubling legal fight over the casino caucuses that led to such ugly intra-party and intra-labor movement acrimony.

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