County bracing for early crush

Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004 | 1:47 a.m.

Early voting for the Sept. 7 primary election begins Saturday and goes through Sept. 3. To find the early voting site nearest you, visit the Clark County Election Department's Web site at accessclarkcounty.com/election or call 455-VOTE(8683).

Clark County election officials, who in previous years have seen a steady rise in early voting numbers, are bracing for another increase in early crowds this year, based on the growing number of registered voters.

Since the inception of early voting in 1996, the number of residents casting ballots up to two weeks before the election has steadily grown, from 17 percent the first year to roughly 57 percent in 2002, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said. These voters either going to the polls early or casting an absentee ballot.

Early voting's popularity this year has come during an election season that has brought in almost 4,000 voter registration forms a day. In 2000, the last presidential election year, the county received about 16,000 new registration forms before the general election.

"That's what we used to consider huge," Lomax said. "God only knows what we'll get for this election."

Officials saw more than 19,000 forms flood in before the February presidential caucuses, he said.

So far this year close to 100,000 new registration forms have been filed, and the general election is still more than two months away, he said.

The numbers have pushed Clark County's voter registration rolls to more than 600,000 people.

Despite the extra work caused by the influx of voters that comes as elections officials are still reeling from the federal decision that left Nevada's county clerks scrambling to verify signatures on four separate petitions, the Election Department will open 67 early voting sites throughout Clark County, Lomax said.

The decision deemed unconstitutional the state's "13-county" rule, which required petition circulators obtain signatures of 10 percent of the people who voted in the last election in at least 13 of Nevada's 17 counties. Those signatures must now be recounted, the judge ruled.

Voting sites are divided into "permanent" sites, which are set up in shopping malls and Election Department offices for the duration of early voting, and short-term "neighborhood" sites.

The permanent sites, which will be open every day during the early voting period, will be at:

Boulevard mall, Maryland Parkway and Desert Inn Road.

Centennial Center, 6401 Centennial Center Blvd.

Galleria at Sunset mall, 1300 W. Sunset Road.

Las Vegas Outlet Center, 7400 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

Meadows mall, 4300 Meadows Lane.

Las Vegas Athletic Club, 5200 W. Sahara Ave.

The Strip -- a trailer behind The Mirage, on Industrial Road near Spring Mountain Road.

County Government Center, Regional Transportation Commission, 600 S. Grand Central Parkway.