Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004 | 11:14 a.m.
It was hectic as polls opened at 7 a.m. today with lines outside the doors of many of Clark County's 329 polling sites, Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said.
"It's always busy in elections that involve presidential races, but it was extremely busy this morning," Lomax said, noting that he would not have early Election Day turnout totals until late today.
At the Desert Willow Community Center near Green Valley Parkway in Henderson, about 100 people had voted by 8 a.m. at the 21 machines, precinct team leader Jim Barber said.
"It's a little busier than it was in 2000," he said, noting he opened to a healthy line outside the door. "We are expecting it to be busy all day."
At 6:50 a.m., there were about 40 people in line at the YMCA on Durango Road north of Cheyenne Avenue waiting for the polls to open. A man who was first in line there said he got there at 6:10 a.m. By around 7:30 a.m. there were about 60 people in line.
Dula Center, in the heart of downtown Las Vegas, opened this morning to about a half-dozen voters waiting in line. Because it was cold outside, team leader Felizia Hernandez let the people into the building early to sit and wait until the 7 a.m. opening.
"One man came here at 6 a.m., ready to vote -- he had forgot to set his clock back Saturday night (at the end of Daylight Savings Time)," she said. "We are a small precinct where things have run smoothly in the past. We are expecting things to run smoothly today."
At Jack and Terry Mannion Middle School in Henderson, about 30 people had lined up before the polls opened. At Twitchell Elementary in Henderson's Green Valley Ranch neighborhood, 20 people were lined up waiting to vote before 7 a.m.
"It's going to be a madhouse tonight when people get off work," one woman said to another person in line at Twitchell. "But it's great that so many people are participating."
The polls will close at 7 p.m., though Lomax said anyone who is in line at 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote, even if they don't cast a ballot until long after 7 p.m. He said local voters in 1996 cast the last ballots at 10:30 p.m.
The Clark County Election Department had a few workers assisting people to vote at the Clark County Government Center this morning. The majority of election workers, however, were out at polling places or at the election warehouse headquarters off West Cheyenne Avenue.
Lomax said things were running pretty smoothly this morning, with only five of the 2,915 machines malfunctioning -- about average for big elections, he said -- and the phones at the Election Department ringing off the hook.
No ballots were lost in the malfunctioning of the machines, Lomax said.
He said the most common inquiries involved confusion about where they should be going today to cast ballots, which is typical for Election Day despite information sent to voters prior to the election.
The most frequent complaints, Lomax said, have come from Democratic and Republican poll watchers complaining about each other's actions or the process at the sites.
"It's absurd," Lomax said. "At one site I visited there were four Democratic poll watchers. The team leaders are trying to run an election with people standing over them questioning everything they do not understand."
Lomax said he would continue to monitor and investigate any potential disruptions of the voting process.
Among the hundreds of poll watchers and attorneys who were hired by people on both sides of the political spectrum were Los Angeles attorney Jim Geffner and Las Vegas volunteer Annette Carman of the organization "Election Protection," who were on hand at Dula Center today.
"In the 2000 election, so many people got disenfranchsied," Carman said. "We just want to be here to make sure people who want to vote have no trouble voting."
Election Protection planned to be at 150 of the 329 polling places, Geffner said.
Also among those poll watchers will be representatives of the AFL-CIO of Nevada, which plans to have a poll watcher at every precinct, said executive secretary-treasurer Danny Thompson.
The group circulated word this week that it will file a restraining order in district court against any Republican groups that try to intimidate voters, Thompson said.
"We've put everyone on notice that we're going to file for a temporary restraining order if we see the Republican Party do what they're doing in other states," said Thompson, who cited alleged cases of voter intimidation in Ohio and Florida.
Chris Carr, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, said Republicans will have between 60 and 80 attorneys in the state but does not want to challenge legitimate voters.
"We will sit as an extra resource just in case something comes up," Carr said. "I don't expect any major problems."
While the poll watchers braced for a contentious battle, some voters at the polls this morning said they would not let their political differences come between them.
Las Vegans Kazi Green and Tricia Laboy, who have been friends for four years and both work in the animal care industry, went together to Dula Center to vote prior to going to work today.
One voted for Republican President George W. Bush, the other for Democratic candidate John Kerry.
Their 50-50 split mirrors what pollsters nationwide are predicting for today -- a close election that could come down to Nevada's five electoral votes to decide it all.
"We tried to convince each other about whose candidate was best, but we respect each other's opinion," Green said.
Both 20-something women said they were turned off by the negative campaigning.
"I did not like it when Bush said 'I approve this message' and then slandered Kerry, and vice versa," said Green, a four-year Las Vegas resident.
Laboy, a Las Vegas resident of seven years, said: "I did not like Kerry blaming Bush for Sept. 11 and accusing him of mishandling the war. I think the president acted properly and fairly."
Among those to vote early today at Desert Willow were John and Ruth Marquez, Henderson residents for 25 years. They found the ballot initiatives that include limiting fees for attorneys or keeping doctors in Nevada most challenging.
"They were very confusing questions -- you needed to be a lawyer to understand them," Ruth Marquez said.
John Marquez said voting on Election Day as opposed to voting early is "tradition" for them. They said they both made up their minds early whom they wanted for president and "for once we did not cancel each other out."
It was difficult getting a gauge on just who people were voting for so early in the process, especially when it came to voters like Courtney Dunigan, an 86-year-old Las Vegas resident since 1939.
"I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I never vote the party -- I vote for the person," he said before voting at Dula today, not tipping his hand as to whether he thought Kerry or Bush was the better choice.
As for who will show up at the polls today, Democrats have traditionally cornered the market on grass-roots efforts that get out the vote, and they broke records this year in registering new voters, especially young people and minorities who don't typically vote.
But Republicans have stepped up their own grass-roots efforts and are launching a massive campaign to bring their supporters to the polls.
Some media outlets recently have pegged Nevada as a state that leans toward President Bush, and recent polls give Bush a 4- to 6-point lead in the state.
But the Associated Press reported Monday that about 5,000 more Democrats than Republicans have cast early or absentee ballots in Clark, Washoe, Carson City and Douglas counties.
In Clark County, 271,465 people voted early. About 64 percent of the state's active voters live in Clark County.
Democrats would have to lose by just a few points in Washoe County and maintain a strong lead in Clark County to overcome the conservative vote in the state's rural counties, political observers have said.
Also at stake are several key state Assembly races that could determine whether Republicans can gain control of the body.
And two County Commission races also could prove close, as Democrat Tom Collins and Republican Shari Buck vie for Seat B and Democrat David Goldwater challenges Republican Lynette Boggs McDonald in Seat F.
Of the 2,915 machines that were turned on today, about 740 are so-called "edge" machines that resemble an ATM and produce a paper printout for voters to check before pressing the final button. Another 2,186 machines are the electronic machines used in the county since 1996, Lomax said.
The first voting tallies should be available between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., when early voting and mail ballot results will be released.
Results reported on election night will not include the 258 provisional ballots that were cast during early voting by those whose voter registration could not be confirmed, Lomax said.
Provisional voters can cast ballots only for federal races, and Lomax's office is in the process of determining if the voters were registered, he said. The results of those investigations will be released with the rest of the final voting counts, Lomax said.
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