Active Nevada voters down in March

The number of active voters in Nevada decreased by 63,107 in March.

Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske said the primary driver behind the reduction is the regularly scheduled voter roll maintenance required by federal and state laws.

What that means is county election officials simply moved large numbers of registered voters from active to inactive status because they failed to vote in the last general election or failed to respond to the postcard sent seeking confirmation they’re still in Nevada.

Altogether, 1,415,009 Nevadans are listed as active voters, down from the 1,478,116 reported in February.

But statistics from the Secretary of State’s website show when both active and inactive voters are reported, the total registered in the state actually increased by 8,096 people to 1,662,308 over the course of the month.

At election time, both active and inactive voters are allowed to cast their ballots. Inactives just have to reconfirm their address with their county registrar.

Democrats still lead the GOP in total registered voters and in active voters. In total voters, it’s Democrats 642,348 to 546,362, a 95,986 voter advantage. But when just actives are counted, their lead drops to 59,084 voters.

The next largest block of voters is the nonpartisan category, those who don’t list any party affiliation. The cleaning of the rolls reduced the number of active nonpartisans by 17,443. But nonpartisans registered an additional 2,343 that month bringing their total registration to 363,568.

Political observers say it’s the nonpartisan vote that most often decides who wins an election.

Democrats took the biggest hit from the 17 county election officials, losing 27,501 names compared to just 12,931 Republicans.

But when total voters are tallied, Democrats gained more than Republicans in March — 3,090 compared to 2,039.

As of the end of March there were 298,288 active nonpartisan voters registered.