WASHINGTON — Between the flubbed vote counting in Nevada and Maine and the topsy-turvy order of finish in Iowa, it hasn’t been the best year ever for the venerable caucus system.

Minnesota’s caucuses went off without a hitch — we had a winner on election night, thanks to quick and orderly vote counting and reporting. But only about 50,000 people showed up to support a Republican presidential candidate — well fewer than in 2008 and less than half of the voters who showed up to participate in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary.

Caucuses are already a dying breed: they dominated the presidential nomination process in the 1960s and 1970s but only a few states still use the system today. Given the struggles at the polls and in the ballot rooms this year, could the caucuses finally be on the way out?

Most states use primaries instead of caucuses these days, and it would take an act of Congress the end the practice nationwide. That doesn’t seem likely, University of California law professor Richard Hasen said. State Legislatures can also step in and mandate a primary instead of a caucus as a means for determining presidential preference, but the parties still choose how to allocate their delegates.

One state, Nevada, is already considering legislation to end the caucuses there, after an unusual schedule, low turnout and more than a day of vote counting. But in Minnesota, with no such problems to speak of, Republicans remain happy with the caucus system.

“We build the ground game through those who attend the caucus and back our endorsed candidates,” Minnesota GOP Deputy Chair Kelly Fenton said. “To those people with the boots on the ground, that matters a lot. Yes, it’s worked well for us.”

49,000 in Minnesota

Fenton largely dismissed the common knocks against the system, primarily that their sizable time commitment and public nature drive away would-be participants and keep turnout low. In Minnesota, 49,000 Republicans showed up to cast their votes in a presidential nomination poll this month; 2008 was a record year, when more than 62,000 participated, but both pale in comparison to the 130,000 who voted in 2010’s Republican gubernatorial primary.

Fewer voters, of course, mean a less-accurate representation about how a state’s party actually feels about the slate of candidates before them.

“The idea that they somehow accurately represent the parties identities of the people of the state is absurd on its face,” Carleton College professor Steven Schier said. “I think we’ve just gotten a rather stark example of that this year.”

But caucus supporters say turnout and the accuracy of the election results are in the hands of the voters, and Fenton notes that the party wasn’t expecting nearly the turnout it saw in 2008.

“Being a caucus state puts the decisions in the hands of the people on the local level,” Fenton said. “So much is accomplished during our caucus system. There’s a lot of work that gets done leading up to the actual election, and much of that work and a lot of those decisions start at caucus night, in there in the room, and move forward from that … Those who show up do have the opportunity to make the greatest impact.”

There’s also the matter of how much those low-turnout events define the presidential contest. Two other states held caucuses the same day as Minnesota, and even though Rick Santorum swept the contests, not a single delegate was awarded. Even so, Santorum became a frontrunner overnight. Schier called the phenomenon an “unholy alliance” between the media and the parties, looking to add importance to even non-binding presidential preference polls.

“In the middle of February, three non-binding events that didn’t produce any delegates for any candidates become the biggest story in America and transforms the presidential election contest,” Schier said.

Problems in other states

That’s all before the errors in Iowa (where Mitt Romney was briefly declared the winner, only to find out he’d lost to Santorum several days latter), Nevada (where vote counting lasted a day and a half) and Maine (where missing ballots and delayed caucuses could have improperly given Romney a victory over Ron Paul), which only ramped up the criticism of the caucus system nationwide.

Hasen wrote an op-ed slamming caucuses and looking for an escape from them in mid-February. He said this year’s contests have been plagued by “a series of embarrassing mistakes that affect the outcome. It raises the question of whether the process is being fair to all the voters that want to participate.”

But Fenton said she couldn’t speak to the mistakes in other states. Minnesota Republicans trained meticulously for caucus night and coordinated with the secretary of state’s office to ensure orderly vote counting. Despite a drop in turnout from 2008, officials say the state’s caucuses were a success.

“It’s a great lesson of democracy: those who show up can have the greatest impact and have a say,” she said. “As long as we’re a caucus state, we have to encourage more and more people to show up to the caucus and be that voice and to make an impact.”

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry