Nevada voter turnout significantly lower than 2020 as more ballots come in

As Clark County elections officials continue to process ballots from Tuesday’s election, one trend is becoming increasingly evident: Voter turnout for the 2024 election in Nevada appears significantly lower than in previous elections.

As of Wednesday morning, 67.8 percent of total registered voters cast a ballot, according to data from the secretary of state’s office. The 2020 general election saw a 77.26 percent turnout.

Clark County is set to release more results after 10 p.m. tonight that could include about 55,000 ballots, though there is still an unknown number of ballots that will be arriving from the post office, according to Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena Portillo.

Portillo said during a 1 p.m. Wednesday press conference that everything is running smoothly and that teams have been working overnight to get ballots processed, and there were no major hiccups during Election Day.

“Our team was well prepared, our systems were well-tested, and everyone was on board as far as what we were doing,” she said.

The county updated its results at 1:32 a.m. Wednesday morning with nearly 930,000 votes counted and released updates again at 1 p.m. for about 9,200 ballots, which includes mail ballots the county received from the post office Tuesday morning and any that were successfully cured so far.

About 54,000 mail ballots were received from vote center drop boxes across the county; those are the ones that will be released in the 10 p.m. update Wednesday night, plus the ones from Tuesday morning’s mail and mail ballots with signature problems have have been cured. Portillo noted, however, that some of those 55,000 ballots might not pass verification and be tabulated Wednesday evening.

Portillo said she does not know how many mail ballots were received through the post office Tuesday night or those received through the post office Wednesday morning, but she expects to have that number later Wednesday.

She highlighted the importance of voters’ curing their signatures if asked to do so by the election department. Voters have until 5 p.m. on Nov. 12 to cure ballots, and curing a ballot is an easy and quick process, Portillo said.

They can call at 702-455-6552 or go to cure.nv.gov. As of 11 a.m., Clark County had about 12,000 signatures that needed to be cured. Statewide, that number is 26,868 ballots. Portillo said some ballots have mismatched signatures, or some people forgot to sign the return envelope as a whole.

“It doesn’t take long,” she said. “I really urge the voters to take advantage of that quick and easy way to cure their signature. It’s not hard, and that way they make sure their ballot counts.”