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Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar maintained Friday — the final day to vote early — the electoral process is among the country’s safest, with his office expecting a significant outcome leading up to Election Day on Tuesday.
As of Friday in a media call with local and national media, Aguilar reported 945,000 Nevadans had voted early. Of those, 365,000 were Republicans, 321,000 were Democrats and 260,000 were nonpartisan or represented other parties. Early voting began on Oct. 19, with results beginning to be counted as of Oct. 21.
“All workers have been preparing for this in the last two years,” Aguilar said. “The process has been smooth for voters, and we’re expecting the same on Election Day.”
Aguilar referred to current successes through the state’s Effective Absenteeism System for Elections (EASE) to make the general election more efficient. EASE was designed to be available to military members and service members overseas, residents with disabilities and tribal members for the first time this year. He also said language resources have been prioritized for non-native English speakers with 200 languages available.
Voting processes and security measures have been streamlined in the rural counties.
“The goal is to make the process easier for workers and voters,” he said.
The polls to vote in person on Tuesday will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and results will be tabulated with an initial release after closure. Every voter who shows up until the polls close will be allowed to stand in line and cast their ballot and will be counted, staff said. However, if there is a delay with hours changed — theoretically from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. — due to weather or technical problems, the change must be reported to the local court and results will be postponed, Deputy for Elections Mark Wlaschin said.
Aguilar addressed the timeline for counting results and election integrity to ensure their votes will be safe and accurate. Ballots received without a signature or doesn’t match local records will go through a curing process for which counties have six days after Election Day, or Nov. 12, due to Veterans Day on Nov. 11. Staff said if the ballot is not resolved during this time, it will not be counted.
Workers also will be checking for fraud, such as double voting, and to ensure the voter identification system works as it does, Aguilar said.
“If someone is going from Carson City to Nye County, we can catch the voter attempting to vote from county to county,” he said. “The system is real time. There are processes if that person did not vote by mail ballot.”
Aguilar’s executive staff expected this election’s turnout to be different, with more voters submitting mail ballots. But even with in-person voting, as far as he’s aware, there have been no incidents in regards to ballot security or threats to workers at the polls.
“We’ve been proud of Nevadans for respecting each other,” he said.