Matt Slocum / AP
A worker processes mail-in ballots at the Bucks County Board of Elections office prior to the primary election, Wednesday, May 27, 2020 in Doylestown, Pa.
Saturday, June 6, 2020 | 2 a.m.
The state’s mostly mail-in primary election is producing more participation than the last primary.
The secretary of state’s office reports 276,456 ballots were received as of Wednesday, which accounts for 17% of active Nevada voters.
That’s on pace to surpass totals in the 2018 primary, where 23% of registered voters participated, and the 19% turnout rate in the 2016 primary. In 2006 and 2010, 30% of active voters cast a ballot, according to the secretary of state’s office.
“We continue to see an increase in the number of mail-in ballots returned to our county election offices,” Wayne Thorley, the deputy secretary of state for elections, said in a statement.
That includes Clark County, where 184,855 ballots have been received as of Friday, county spokesperson Dan Kulin said.
Though there will be three in-person voting locations in Clark County and one in each of the state’s other counties on Tuesday, the election is being mostly conducted by mail-in ballot to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
The mail-in primary has been a point of contention between Democrats and Republicans, with many Democratic organizations, including both the national and state parties, filing lawsuits to expand in-person voting locations to give more voters an opportunity to cast a ballot. They also urged ballots to be mailed to all registered voters, and not just active voters.
Active voters are those whose home address is confirmed to be correct on file with the secretary of state’s office.
In response, Clark County expanded voting locations and sent mail-in ballots to all registered voters, a move that Republicans have decried as a potential cause of voter fraud. The secretary of state’s office, headed Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, says it has a comprehensive security system in place, in which ballots are scanned and checked to avoid cases of voter fraud.
As of Wednesday, 248,868 ballots had been returned to county election officials as undeliverable.
The partisan lines are split relatively evenly in ballots received statewide, with 43% of the ballot casts as of Wednesday from Democrats and 41% from Republicans.
Voters will be able to cast their ballot by mail as long as it is postmarked by June 9 and received by 5 p.m. June 16.
That means results won’t be official on election night. The county will release partial results showing totals from ballots received before election day late Tuesday. The final results will be available June 16.
