Nevada's two largest counties will use improved technology for this year's elections, which officials say will speed up the processing of mail-in ballots.
At last week's meeting of the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, county and state election officials discussed how they will use additional technology to accelerate the pace of mail-in ballot processing in 2024 election operations, and who won. provided lawmakers with changes that could help them decide. Most of the races immediately following his 2022 and 2020 top races weren't called until days after Election Day.
Clark County plans to use six vote-by-mail readers capable of tabulating 8,000 ballots per hour in the primary and general elections, up from two the county used in 2020 and four in 2022. Then, County Registrar Lorena Portillo told lawmakers last week. The county also plans to use about 26 machines to count in-person Election Day ballots from flash drives, up from 10 machines used in 2022.
The county is also implementing a double shift of election workers on Election Day, which will speed up the vote-counting process, Portillo said.
Washoe County plans to unveil new ballot sorting machines between the primary and general elections. Rather than counting ballots, the machines sort envelopes by precinct for all votes not cast in person on Election Day (mail-in ballots, early votes, and ballots left in drop boxes). The machine also scans the barcode on the ballot and uploads the voting status to the county's website, so voters can see if their ballot was received, said Interim Registrar Karian Burgess. Told. indy.
The new machines can also automatically check whether a voter's signature matches the signature on file, although this process is currently done manually. If the machine detects a signature that doesn't match, county officials manually check to see if there is actually a mismatch, a county spokesperson said. indy. The county also will allow the public to test the signature verification feature before voting begins, and county staff will manually audit the system during the election period.
Burgess said Washoe County's existing machine, which is more than 15 years old and was purchased used in 2020, is prone to breakdowns and sorts about 300 ballots an hour, compared to the new machine. It is said that it can sort approximately 500 ballot papers. He added that it typically takes about 48 hours to process a ballot after it is received, but the county is aiming to shorten that to 24 to 36 hours.
After temporarily moving to all-mail voting during the pandemic, the state Legislature made universal mail-in voting permanent in 2021 while also allowing voters to opt out of receiving a mail-in ballot.
In 2020, President Joe Biden was not declared the winner in Nevada until four days after Election Day due to a trickle of mail-in votes after polls closed. In the 2022 U.S. Senate race, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) also held off until four days after Election Day to call a race against former Attorney General Adam Laxalt. There wasn't.
In 2022, approximately 40,000 mail-in ballots in Clark County and 5,700 mail-in ballots in Washoe County will be received after Election Day, with the overwhelming majority received the day after Election Day, according to data from the Secretary of State's Office. It was done. In 2022, Cortez Masto defeated Laxalt by less than 8,000 votes.
The technology upgrade comes as election officials anticipate voters will continue to prefer voting by mail.
More than 74% of Clark County votes were cast by mail in February's presidential primary, according to a county announcement last week. In the 2022 primary, more than 55% of Clark County's votes were cast by mail, and in 2020, all primary votes were cast by mail due to the pandemic.
Portillo said turnout trends from this year's election will play a key role in determining how the county allocates resources going forward, and if mail-in voting remains the primary method of voting. He added that in-person election staff could be cut.
Burgess told lawmakers that Washoe County officials expect at least half of the ballots cast this year to be by mail. This is a significant increase from 2022, when about one-third of county votes were by mail.
Nevada law allows mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted as long as they are received within four days of Election Day. Republicans, particularly former President Donald Trump, falsely claimed that the 2020 mail-in voting was rife with fraud, but even as President Trump continues to denigrate the process, Republicans are now Voting by mail is encouraged.
The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit earlier this month alleging that the post-Election Day processing time for mail-in ballots violates federal law, but the Biden campaign on Monday asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar also told lawmakers at last week's meeting that the state is partnering with veterans voting groups to hire high school poll workers, after a staffing shortage prompted Douglas County to use poll workers. He said he is working to increase the number of employees. Work at a polling place during the presidential primary election.
“We need to give election officials every chance to succeed. That means more resources to do their jobs,” Aguilar said. “As we look to Congress, more stable funding and resources are important.”
