Just over three-quarters of Nevada’s registered voters voted in the last two presidential election cycles: 77% in 2016 and 78% in 2020.

A similar turnout this year would mean that about two-thirds of Nevadans who will vote have already done so, while at least half a million more will vote in person on Tuesday, Election Day or by mailing in ballots between now and then.

A smidge more than half (50.4%) of eligible Nevada voters had cast their ballots by the end of Friday, the last day of in-person early voting.

Cumulative turnout by mail and in-person during this year’s early voting period was slightly less frequent than four years ago, when 56% of the electorate had cast votes at the end of early voting, according to turnout reports from the Nevada Secretary of State.

Of the more than 542,000 in-person early voters, 45.5% were Republicans and 27.7% were Democrats.

Another 26.8% of votes were cast by others, including nonpartisans (a group that would constitute the state’s largest political party if they were a party) along with a much smaller number of Nevadans who belong to third parties.

Of the 483,171 mail-in ballots received as of Friday, 40.2% were submitted by Democrats, 30.3% by Republicans and 29.4% by others.

Of the just over one million total votes (by mail and early in-person) cast during the early voting period, Republicans accounted for 38.4%, Democrats for 33.6%, and nonpartisan/other parties for 28. %.

The Secretary of State’s office will continue to release mail-in ballot totals every day until Election Day.

In this year’s June primary, the only day most mail-in ballots were received was the day after Election Day, because many people drop their mail-in ballot in the mail or in a drop box on Election Day. of the elections.

So far, so good

“The process has been smooth,” Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said during a press conference Friday, and his office is “waiting for the same thing until election day.”

He said there have been no cases requiring the use of a new law. enacted during the 2023 legislative session to protect poll workers from intimidation and election interference.

Mail-in ballots are already being counted and county election officials can begin counting in-person votes early on the morning of Election Day.

That means that when the polls close on Tuesday, all early voting ballots and mail-in ballots received before Election Day will likely have been counted, and the first results announcement could include a substantially larger batch of votes than the previous one. past.

In 2020, media decision boards did not call the Nevada presidential race until the Saturday after Election Day, due to the narrow margins separating Donald Trump and Joe Biden and the significant number of mail-in ballots that did not. had been counted at the end of election day. .

He The new procedures make officials optimistic. that Nevada results won’t take as long this year. One of those officials is Lorena Portillo, voter registrar in Clark County, which is home to 72% of Nevada’s registered voters.

During Friday’s press conference, Aguilar and his staff noted that voting machines are not connected to the Internet, so ballots must be physically brought to the county elections office. This was emphasized to address security concerns, but also to point out the delay in counting Election Day votes, when ballots are driven from distant rural polling places to county seats.

Despite new procedures designed to speed up the reporting of results, that does not guarantee that the winners of close races will be known on election night, a point underscored by the volume of mail-in votes received on Election Day itself but They are not counted until later during the primaries.

Aguilar encouraged voters to update their contact information on vote.nv.gov so that counties can contact you directly if your signature is not accepted or if there are other problems.

Aguilar also joked that his goal is for the Nevada election to go smoothly so that no one outside of Nevada knows who he is.