Huge turnout reported during first day of early voting in the Nevada Caucuses

Voters in the third state os the Democratic National Committee's 2020 nomination process began participating on Saturday.

For the first time, early voting is allowed in the Nevada Caucuses. Voters will be able to partipate in the caucuses by ranking voters during the early voting process.

"We are very excited to share that as of 5:00 p.m., we had more than 11,800 Nevada Democrats participate in the first day of our historic four-day early vote period!" the Nevada Democratic Party posted on Twitter, adding the hashtag #FirstInTheWest.

That number represents 14% of the total number of caucus-goers in 2016.

The early voting period lasts until Tuesday, with the full caucuses being held on Saturday, February 22nd.

Veteran Nevada political journalist Jon Ralson offered his thoughts on the significance of the numbers.

"That’s a big number but hard to know what it means. We will know more by the end of early voting on Tuesday, but many fewer sites open the next two days. Main question is whether early voting is enhancing or cannibalizing turnout," Ralson noted.