More than 11,000 Clark County voters already have cast primary ballots

Sunday, May 23, 2010 | 7:59 a.m.

The numbers in Clark County:

----5,080 Republicans have voted early or by mail — it’s about evenly split. That’s about 2 percent of registered Republicans.

----5,310 Democrats have voted by mail or on Saturday — also about evenly split. That’s about 1.6 percent of registered Democrats.

----A total of 11,460 people have voted by mail (5,882, .5 percent) or at polls ( 5,578, or about .5 percent) Saturday so far in Clark County — about 1.6 percent of all Clark County registered voters.

----Almost 60 percent of those who voted were in CD3.

If you are wondering about what this means, early voting turnout is usually high on the first day but gets even higher during the second week. Example: In 2008, for the primary, 19,868 folks voted the first week and 28,325 the second. Early/mail voting was nearly 60 percent of the turnout in 2008, when it was under 15 percent. In 2006, the first week/second week trend was similar in the primary, with the early/mail balloting also approaching 60 percent of the total turnout.

Considering there are much more compelling races on the GOP side (U.S. Senate and governor) and little to excite Democratic voters, I am a little surprised at these numbers. Yes, Republicans have voted in greater proportional numbers, but not by much.

I don’t have breakdowns in Washoe, but registrar reports 2,164 people voted Saturday.