With Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final and a Major League Baseball game featuring the soon-to-be Las Vegas Athletics, one could be forgiven for forgetting that today is also a big day for Nevada politics.
Yes, it’s Election Day, and voters have one last chance to help guide the future of state and local governments.
Polling locations will open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. People in line at closing time will be allowed to cast their ballots.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal has planned extensive coverage and is dispatching reporters to voting centers throughout Clark County. Real-time updates, including preliminary results, will be available online sometime after 8 p.m., and race summaries will be in Wednesday’s newspaper.
Only about 12 percent of registered Nevada voters had participated in the primary process as of Monday afternoon, according to state figures. About 208,000 Nevadans had returned their mail ballots as of Monday, and 94,237 others took advantage of two weeks of early, in-person voting that concluded Friday night.
There are roughly 2 million active and inactive registered voters in the state who have not voted.
Nevada offers same-day, in-person registration for inactive voters. The process requires a state identification card.
Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, the state’s chief election officer, told the Review-Journal on Friday that the state’s counties had thus far reported a smooth process with no hiccups.
“Don’t forget to vote on Election Day,” he said.
Voters can take their mail ballots to drop boxes or polling locations, or mail them back by Tuesday.
A state law allows returned mail ballots to be counted for up to four days if they are postmarked by Election Day, and up to three days if there’s no clear postmark.
Aguilar recommended the first two options to ensure that every vote is counted.
A plethora of local, state and federal nonpartisan and partisan races are on the ballot. Offices including the governor, attorney general, and the state’s four U.S. House seats are up for grabs this year.
Some races can be won outright Tuesday, including the race for Clark County sheriff. Sheriff Kevin McMahill just needs a single vote to win re-election because he does not have a challenger.
For nonpartisan municipal races, a candidate with more than 50 percent of the vote wins automatically. Otherwise, the top two candidates advance to a November runoff.
Partisan races will see the top candidate of each party advance to the midterms in the fall.
Early results are expected shortly after the Clark County Election Department receives every voting machine flash drive at its headquarters.
Nevada had received about 208,000 returned mail ballots as of Monday afternoon, with roughly 2,600 requiring signature verification, also known as curing.
About 63,000 Clark County voters participated in early, in-person voting. At least 125,307 others here had returned their mail ballots. About 1,252 ballots in the county still required signature verification.
Voters are able to cure their ballots for up to six days after Election Day. Ballots can be tracked at myballot.nv.gov.
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.
