Why Can’t Republicans Figure Out How to Hold a Primary Caucus?

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Adam Sorensen on the embarrassing spectacle of the Republican caucuses so far:

Sure it took a month to declare the actual winner of the Iowa caucuses, tallies from eight precincts were lost altogether and vote counting in Nevada dragged on for days, but you can’t really understand the depth of dysfunction in the caucus system until you behold the caricature of incompetence that is Maine.

A nickel summary of the Maine fiasco follows. So what’s going on? I don’t remember anything like this on either side in 2008. Is it just an artifact of a bunch of close contests? Are Republicans trying to prove that we need tougher election laws by holding lots of seemingly corrupt elections themselves? What the hell is going on?