A sign-up line in a casino in Las Vegas on Saturday and Hillary Clinton at a meeting in Missouri. (AP, Reuters)

Washington, Jan. 20: The voting booths came to the casinos, candidates in tow. This could only happen in Las Vegas.

In a bold effort to wean shift workers away from 24-hour gambling houses in Sin City to participate in electoral politics, nine casinos along the neon-bathed “strip” in Las Vegas were designated as voting stations in the Nevada Democratic presidential caucuses yesterday.

The voters, mostly Democratic party supporters belonging to the Culinary Workers Union on the strip, went to the caucuses during lunch break in their uniforms — waitresses in cocktail dresses, cooks with their chef’s toques, chambermaids in their cleaning clothes and so on.

Many of them were voting for the first time: so confusion reigned at several caucuses. But they not only voted, but also lunched on exotic sea food and dessert that the casino managements generously put out, dishes these workers usually serve on their low-paid jobs to customers, some of whom pay $400 or more for a room to stay the night at a casino to gamble away till they drop or run out of money.

The Culinary Workers Union has a membership of 60,000, most of whom are Democrats, a lucrative enough number for any presidential aspirant to woo during the primaries. But they work in long shifts and are either unable to leave work at the 24-hour gambling houses to caucus or are too tired after their shifts to trek to a voting precinct closer home.

In 2004, only 9,000 Democrats participated in the Nevada caucus, according to published statistics. So the innovative campaign of New York Senator Hillary Clinton, which controls the state Democratic Party, came up with the idea of caucusing in the casinos.

But as events turned in favour of Illinois Senator Barack Obama during the Iowa caucus and in the run up to the New Hampshire primary this month, the Culinary Workers Union sprang a surprise and endorsed Obama instead of Clinton. A lawsuit was quickly filed and Clinton backers were said to have been behind the legal challenge, although her campaign was quick to deny it.

These intrigues added to the novelty of converting the Eiffel Tower, Caesar’s Palace and the Pyramids; Las Vegas structures made famous over decades by film and television, into rare fora for political debate.

But in the end, women members went against the directive of their own Culinary Workers Union and voted in droves for Clinton instead of Obama. Such gender-based support pushed Clinton to her second successive win giving her an edge in the 2008 presidential campaign in which she nearly appeared to be doomed after a surprise defeat in Iowa.

The Republicans, who have little support among casino workers, did not bother to go to the strip.

Elsewhere, at their caucuses in Nevada, Mormons nearly unanimously voted for one of their faith and catapulted former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney to victory, his second successive win in the Republican primaries.

A quarter of those who took part in yesterday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada were Mormons. The party’s presidential nomination is, however, wide open with Arizona Senator John McCain winning the party’s primary in South Carolina last night. In every presidential election since 1980, the winner in South Carolina has finally emerged as the Republican candidate.