Carson City voter turnout target at risk?

Carson City voters who still want to cast ballots have their last chance to do that today for the 2014 election.

“Everybody votes at the Community Center today,” said Sue Merriwether, clerk/recorder-elect and the current chief deputy clerk in the office. Merriwether, who was unopposed in the primary and so elected to take office Jan. 5, 2015, made her comment about the polling place location while setting it up Monday in the center’s gymnasium. The center is at 851 E. William St., which is on the southeast corner of William and Roop streets.

Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. The weather forecast is for partly sunny skies with a crisp morning temperature in the high 30s, a peak during the day in the low 60s.

Early voting, which was done at the clerk/recorder’s office in the Courthouse a few blocks south at Roop and Musser streets, finished Friday. Totals already compiled show there were 8,457 taking advantage of that opportunity, as well as 1,121 absentee ballots already counted.

Registration totals indicate 28,039 had registered to vote in the consolidated city by Oct. 14, the deadline for this general election.

Among them were 12,203 registered as Republicans, 8,878 as Democrats and 4,809 as nonpartisan, with the balance spread among the Independent American, Libertarian and other categories.

Clerk/Recorder Alan Glover earlier estimated 76 percent turnout in the city for this non-presidential year’s general election, but the early voter turnout totals had Merriwether unsure about that on Monday.

“With early voting, it was a little bit low,” she said. “I don’t know if were going to hit that.”

Merriwether said some 60 voting machines were being set up Monday for today’s turnout.

In the pre-election day balloting data, there were 2,645 Democrats, 4,422 Republicans and 1,420 from the nonpartisan or other categories casting early votes. Among the absentee voters, 599 Republican ballots had been cast, along with 379 Democrats and 143 by nonpartisans or others.

With the total 9,578 counted prior to today, that leaves nearly 18,500 of those registered as eligible voters. Glover’s 76 percent turnout estimate would translate to 21,309 voters total when all ballots are counted, or 12,852 voting today if it proved accurate.

Federal, state and local races will be decided. Among the races are those for the U.S. House of Representatives, governor, lieutenant governor and the legislature at the state level, and for district attorney and two seats on the Board of Supervisors in Carson City. Ballot questions include a business margins tax at the state level and an advisory vote on ward voting in primaries for Carson City’s supervisors.