My day started with a hotel housekeeper directing me to the right place to enter the caucus site, a ballroom at the Luxor. She spoke little English. I asked her if she was going to caucus today. She immediately went into an impassioned speech about how much she loved Hillary Clinton and wanted to caucus for her. But then she said she couldn’t. She said she was supposed to have asked her manager a week ago for permission to go but she hadn’t and now it was too late, she had to work. I tried to tell her that her supervisor was supposed to let her go nonetheless, but she seemed afraid to and said she couldn’t.

At the caucus itself, after my bizarre episode of helping to avert disenfranchisement, which I wrote about here, the scene was somewhat inspiring. Although I had spent the week focusing on all the people who would not be able to participate—like the housekeeper, the dealer who needed the tips, the cook who had no idea what a caucus was—it was quite a site to see the array of people who did show up. There they were, in all their various uniforms, cocktail waitress included. I was also surprised by one very obvious sign of hotel management support for participation: every worker from every hotel had been supplied with a free box lunch from the hotel dining services. Indeed, one worker told me that management had hired overtime workers to cover for the employees who wanted to caucus (presumably people who were not eligible or did not want to participate, or so I hoped).

The lines were long, but at this site, it was extremely organized. People were having a good time and seemed excited about the event. A huge majority of the attendees were in fact Latinos, providing evidence that the purpose of the hotel caucuses—to increase Latino participation—was being fulfilled, at least at the Luxor. There was a lot of Spanish being spoken. At the same time, there was great diversity, all across the board.

Inside the ballroom, the scene was basically what you would expect at an international soccer match. Supporters of Obama and Clinton had already divided themselves up and were shouting competing chants, waving signs, and dancing in the aisles. One woman was shaking a loud rattle for Clinton. Another, unfortunately, seemed to cross the line between passion and pressure: an Obama supporter who wore a button indicating she was from the Culinary Union was yelling things at the Clinton voters, at one point approaching them, yelling “You signed a contract for Obama!” which none of the people it was directed at understood. But they yelled back at her to stop intimidating them and that they were for Hillary.

Interestingly, again, there were signs that management knew there was some positive public and employee relations to be gotten from this: a huge banner behind the podium said “MGM Mirage Supports 2008 Caucus,” and another said “Rev Up 2008—MGM Mirage—Register Educate Vote.”

It was immediately obvious that, at this caucus, there were more supporting Obama than Clinton, and that Edwards had no support in evidence. That became all the more clear when there was no Edwards representative at the site, and the caucus site manager had to ask someone to volunteer to observe the vote on behalf of the Edwards campaign.

As was the case at most hotel caucuses, the rules and procedures were announced in English and Spanish. (At the Flamingo, it was apparently done only in Spanish.) There was a count of how many people were in the room: 383 (which I learned later was the second most of the day among the casino sites, second only to the Wynn). This turnout meant the caucus would choose 77 delegates. Anyone doing a little simple math could see that the allegations the teachers union had made in their lawsuit against the party to try to shut down the casino sites were true: the caucus at the Luxor would be rewarded with one delegate for every five voters, a much greater representation than would be the case at the other caucus sites, where delegate allocation was determined by number of registered voters in the jurisdiction, not the turnout.

The rest of the process went smoothly. Everyone who supported Obama went to one part of the room, all the Clinton supporters to another, and all the Edwards supporters to a third. There were only three Edwards supporters, meaning his campaign had insufficient support and those three would have to re-align with one of the other candidates or choose uncommitted. They went with Obama.

Then the official counting had to begin. There was murmuring among the workers/voters. It was after one o’clock. They were growingly increasingly concerned about getting back to their jobs. The caucus manager tried to reassure them that under the agreement the party had with the hotel, it was okay if they were a few minutes late.

Then there was a rather extraordinary scene. The manager announced that Felix Rappaport, the President of the Luxor Hotel, wanted to address the group. Mr. Rappaport got on the microphone and told the audience that what they were doing at the caucus was more important than their day to day jobs. He told them that they were participating in the American political process, engaging in what makes America great. So, he said, “don’t worry about being late. Don’t worry about anything.” The crowd roared.

Finally, the count was in: 211 for Obama, 162 for Clinton (evidently ten people had left, probably not realizing that, at a caucus, a voter must stay the whole way through or else their vote would not be counted. Some we learned had given their ballots—which were not for official use—to co-workers, thinking that would count.)

Later, I learned what an anomaly the Luxor was. Turnout at the nine hotel sites was much lower than expected—only 2,600 altogether. Given all the stories I had heard from employees during the week, this was not entirely surprising. I also learned that, at other sites in the state, there was mass confusion, leading many voters simply to walk out without participating.

At the same time, turnout in the rest of the state was enormous in comparison to past caucuses—over 114,000 had participated. Andres Ramirez, the Latino outreach director for the state party, informed me that 15 percent of that turnout was Latino, exceeding the group’s percentage of eligible voters in the state, 12 percent. His speculation was that hotel workers had ended up caucusing at their home sites. I’m not so sure about that explanation for the disparity. Exit polls will later tell us more about that. He also said he believed that a lot more Latinos would have voted had they not walked out after experiencing great disorganization at their caucus site. He personally observed one-third of the voters leaving the caucus at Rancho High School, in a predominantly Latino jurisdiction.

But Ramirez made another point that is extremely important. The overall turnout demonstrated that, even in a situation where there was a lot of confusion, lack of knowledge and experience with the process, and even some fear, lots of new voters participated. Over 100,000 more voters participated this year than did four years ago, which was clearly apparent. At the Luxor alone, we counted 130 new registration forms completed (people not registered to vote could still vote in the caucus by registering on the spot, in a form of Election Day registration that would only apply to the caucuses, not the general election), and many of them, if not most, were from Latinos.

And so, in one sense, the day was a success. Turnout was enormous. Latinos took part. (I’ll be assessing the process more thoroughly in the weeks to come, as the numbers and the stories become clearer.) But in the end, a caucus is a caucus is a caucus. How many people could have participated if they had had all day to simply walk into a polling site and cast a ballot? How many people would not have been deterred from participating because the process was so confusing? How many workers had to struggle with fears of crossing their bosses or of missing out on needed money in tips compared to their wanting to exercise their democratic rights? I applaud the party and the campaigns for all their efforts, and the ultimate turnout results. I am only left to wonder how much more of an extraordinary day this might have been had the process been one that was not structurally exclusionary.

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