Early voters turn out in droves

Friday, Nov. 3, 2000 | 11:09 a.m.

On Tuesday the Clark County Election Department won't have to worry about accommodating about 37 percent of the area's active registered voters.

By the end of today, those people already would have voted either by the early voting process or by mail-in ballots, election officials said.

"The turnout has been just absolutely fantastic," Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said. "Every time I have made predictions, I have been short and have had to change them."

As of this morning, 146,180 people had voted in Clark County during the 14-day voting period that ends tonight at 13 sites, including area malls.

So far, 63,551 Clark County Democrats had voted compared to 63,263 Republicans. The rest of the voters casting ballots were registered to other parties or as independents. There are about 249,000 registered Democrats and 213,000 registered Republicans in Clark County.

Lomax predicts that about 20,000 people will vote today -- he said he will keep the polling places open past the scheduled 9 p.m. closing until everyone in line has voted -- bringing to 166,000 the number of early voters.

Lomax said about 41,000 mail-in ballots have been received as of today.

Those 207,000 actual and projected early votes and mail-in ballots account for nearly four of every 10 people who will be eligible to vote in Clark County on Tuesday.

That means with Lomax predicting a 60-70 percent turnout for the general election, more than half of those who intend to vote already have done so.

Although statewide totals of early voting will not be compiled until after the election, Susan Morandi, deputy secretary of state for elections, said today that from what she has heard, there has been "a fantastic turnout" for early voting statewide.

"That's the way it has been in Washoe and Carson City," Morandi said today, noting that no hard numbers have been compiled from the state's 17 counties. "We were in Eureka Monday, and it was pretty much the same thing both with early voting and mail-ins."

Lomax and Morandi said the convenience of early voting has been the key to its success.

"It is easy to get to the polls, especially for people who work unusual shifts and would have difficulty voting on Election Day," Morandi said, predicting a 60 percent turnout statewide.

Lomax said people remember the long lines on Election Day in 1996 and decided to get out early to avoid them. However, he said he does not expect long waits on Tuesday as there 2,186 machines at 309 voting sites compared to 1,170 machines at 170 sites in 1996.