An election worker inspects a mail-in ballot in the count room at the Clark County Election Department in North Las Vegas Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022.
Published Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022 | 12:01 p.m.
Updated Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022 | 1:45 p.m.
Clark County will count and release the results of approximately 22,000 mail-in ballots today, the last such batch before midterm election totals must be reported to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office early next week, Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said.
The county on Friday reported 27,346 ballots that were tabulated, helping secure victories for Republican governor-elect Joe Lombardo as well as projected winner Cisco Aguilar, the Democrat running for Secretary of State.
Today’s total of about 22,000 will include 268 mail-in ballots received Saturday by the U.S. Post Office. Gloria also said there are 7,139 ballots remaining in the cure process, meaning the county needs to contact that voter to verify their signature to match the state’s voter file.
We’ve still got work with the counting board, but as soon as they’re done we’ll be sending that over to tabulation and everything will be tabulated and reported on this evening minus the outstanding cures and provisions that will go in next week,” Gloria said, marking the fifth day of daily updates with reporters.
“We will continue to communicate with the post office throughout this afternoon. If we receive it by five o’clock and it’s postmarked (by Nov. 8), we’ll bring them in. We don’t want anybody to be disenfranchised. But we rely completely on the post office to give us that information.”
Gloria didn’t want to say specifically when the updated results would be uploaded to the county’s website, but said it would likely be later in the afternoon or early this evening.
Most of Nevada’s statewide races have been called by the Associated Press except for the widely-watched race for U.S. Senate, where control of the upper congressional chamber could hinge on this contest.
As of late Friday, Republican challenger Adam Laxalt led incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto by about 800 votes, or less than 1%. Cortez Masto, however, has been making large gains in urban Clark and Washoe counties. Her best chance to overtake Laxalt would be with today’s updated figures.
Laxalt’s lead was once as big as 17,000 votes. Experts say that mail-in voting tends to favor Democratic candidates, but detractors like former President Donald Trump claims the state’s dayslong process to count its glut of mail-in votes amounts to fraud. No such evidence of fraud, however, has been reported by the county.
Taking to his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday, Trump wrote: “Now they’re finding all sorts of Ballots in Clark County, Nevada. They are pulling out all stops to steal the Election from Adam Laxalt. Mitch McConnell, the Republicans Broken Down Senate Leader, does nothing about this. He’s too busy spending vast amounts of money on bad Senator Lisa M of Alaska, when Kelly S is FAR better. Should have fought and stopped the steal in 2020. Gave Dems 4 Trillion Dollars, never used Debt Ceiling. He is the WORST!”
Trump has falsely asserted since losing the 2020 Presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, that widespread voter fraud “rigged” the election against him. But officials and investigators have not found any evidence of a tainted 2020 election, and Nevada’s Republican Secretary of State has assured the public the election was free and fair and untainted by meaningful fraud.
Gloria was asked Saturday to respond to the former president’s claims. He stood by the work of him and his workers.
“We are taking ballots in that we are required to take in according to the law,” Gloria said. “There’s no way that we can ‘find’ ballots. They are brought here by the United States Postal Service. As long as it’s postmarked, we process it and put it in the count.”
Gloria was also asked if he believed Trump’s rhetoric could fuel threats against the county’s election workers, but declined to give that claim oxygen.
“I’d rather not comment on that,” he said. “I really don’t want to poke the bear.”
Gloria, however, did say there have been few threats called into the Clark County Election Department or its staff. He personally thanked the Clark County Park Police, Metro Police and other local law enforcement agencies for providing around-the-clock protection.
“They’re working overtime they wouldn’t normally have to work,” Gloria said. “They took our support seriously.”
