Voters line up at an early voting polling site in the Galleria at Sunset shopping mall in Henderson Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022.
Friday, Oct. 28, 2022 | 2 a.m.
At the polling location at the Galleria Mall in Henderson, one of the valley’s busiest voting sites, voters quickly moved through the line this weekday morning during Nevada’s early voting window.
The line at times stretched to a few paces from the doors of the Kohl’s department store, but it was a picture of organized calm with eight workers at the check-in table, more ushering people to one of about 30 booths and others accepting mail ballots through a separate, even faster line after ensuring they were submitted in properly signed and sealed official envelopes.
Voters who wanted to make their picks at the machines waited only a few minutes from start to finish.
That’s just how Clark County elections officials have envisioned the process going: smoothly.
It’s been a quiet initial week at the polls for early voting, and that’s just fine with Clark County elections chief Joe Gloria. There have been no reports of voter intimidation or significant technical issues, he said.
Gloria, whose official title is Clark County registrar of voters, said that between 500 and 600 poll workers were at various sites on any given day during the early voting period, and 200 workers are staffing a helpline. And they’ve been training and preparing for months.
“All of the work culminates with the satisfaction of getting to this point where things are running smoothly,” he said.
Gloria said about 55,000 mail ballots had been received countywide through Wednesday, and data shows more people are opting to vote by mail or dropping off their mail ballots at the polls. Mail ballots, returned either way, could account for 60% of the voting preference, Gloria said.
Election Day is Nov. 8. Voters can wait until then and vote in person, make their picks in the traditional poll setting during early voting through Nov. 4, or drop off completed mail ballots at the same locations. Voters are not limited to neighborhood precincts. (Click here for early voting locations).
The county has 17 long-term early voting locations, plus 18 traveling “mobile teams” that rotate through dozens of pop-up polling places, on both public and private property.
Gloria knows many people still love voting on Election Day, and he anticipates the smooth experience carrying over.
“This is what we live for,” he said. “We are pretty (seasoned) in running things.”
Nevada’s U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt is one of the most closely watched elections in the midterms, with Senate control hanging in the balance and Nevada a battleground state. Other high-stakes contests for Clark County voters include the races for governor, three House of Representatives seats, and the state secretary of state and attorney general.
Warren and Barbara Lee were among the first in line Wednesday at the Galleria. They’ve voted early before, and it was, again, an easy experience this time, they said.
Jeanne Chomko is another experienced early voter. She said she was eager to clear out incumbents.
She said she asked the poll workers if they were being paid and was pleased to find out that they were, because she appreciates their time, attention to detail and friendliness.
“They’re so helpful,” Chomko said. “They’re so sweet.”
Not all states are having a drama-free experience. Voters in Arizona have reported harassment from what officials call “drop box watchers” allegedly following voters, photographing their license plates and calling them “mules.” Videos and images of armed people clad in tactical dress and full-face masks near a ballot drop box outside Phoenix went viral last week.
“Uninformed vigilantes outside Maricopa County’s drop boxes are not increasing election integrity. Instead they are leading to voter intimidation complaints. Although monitoring and transparency in our elections is critical, voter intimidation is unlawful,” Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and Recorder Stephen Richer said in a joint statement Saturday. “For those who want to be involved in election integrity, become a poll worker or an official observer with your political party. Don’t dress in body armor to intimidate voters as they are legally returning their ballots.”
Gloria said Arizona uses mailbox-style drop boxes that are out in the open, while those are rare here. The boxes, which can easily be accessed in parking lots, are ripe for hiccups, and he’s glad Clark County doesn’t have them, Gloria said.
Arizona was also a battleground state in 2020 that went for Joe Biden over then-President Donald Trump. It has several prominent election deniers: Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs challenged Biden’s victory right before the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Republican state senators undertook an extensive audit in Maricopa County — Arizona’s most populous, which includes Phoenix — but found no evidence of fraud. Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake persists with stolen election claims. Several “alternate electors” from around the state cast fake electoral college votes for Trump.
Nevada also had a slate of “alternate electors.” And it has a loyal Trump ally in Laxalt, who co-chaired Trump’s Nevada reelection campaign and filed lawsuits demanding Trump be named the winner or the state’s election results be thrown out. Trump and his supporters brought 10 cases with 28 counts challenging Nevada’s election results. They were unsuccessful in proving fraud or irregularities sufficient to overturn the election results in any court or investigation.
The office of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican and the state’s top elections official, spent 125 hours investigating claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election brought forward by the Nevada Republican Party. “While the NVGOP raises policy concerns about the integrity of mail-in voting, automatic voter registration and same-day voter registration,” Cegavske wrote in a 2021 letter to the Nevada Republican Party about her office’s investigation, “these concerns do not amount to evidentiary support for the contention that the 2020 general election was plagued by widespread voter fraud.”
