Clark County record shattered for early-voting turnout

Thursday, Oct. 29, 1998 | 12:12 p.m.

With only hours of early voting to go, the old record for pre-Election Day ballot-casting has been shattered.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Kathryn Ferguson said today that as of the close of early voting Wednesday, 63,400 people had voted at area malls, the Clark County Government Center and at other sites.

The old record was 46,127 set in the 1996 general run-off.

With three days to go this year, 54,560 people had voted. The 1996 total with three days to go was 30,704, meaning that 15,423 people took advantage of the early voting service in the last three days of that campaign. At that pace, Ferguson believes about 80,000 people will vote early this year.

In all, about 290,000 people -- 60 percent of active Clark County voters -- are expected to vote in this year's general run off next Tuesday. On Election Day, about 185,000 of them are expected to show up at the polls.

"We are ready for them," Ferguson said, noting that the large pre-voting turnout should help reduce lines at the polls. "We have 93 more poling places (than in '96) and 536 more machines."

Early voting will close 9 p.m. Friday at area malls and 8 p.m. at the government center. Four mobile voting units will close at varying times, with the earliest at 4 p.m. and the latest at 8 p.m.

Though Wednesday, 28,267 Democrats and 28,163 Republicans had voted. The remainder were third party or non-partisan voters.

Election workers cannot tell how many votes each candidate has received because, even though the votes are being tabulated as they are cast, they are encrypted and cannot be read, Ferguson said.

"We won't know who received the votes until everyone else knows (when the early returns come in after the polls close at 7 p.m)," she said.

Also, through Wednesday, 23,430 mail-in ballots had been received, election officials said.