Long lines in Clark, Nye and Washoe counties delay Nevada election results

Lines to vote in Nye and Washoe counties were three hours long Tuesday evening, and a backlog of voters in Clark County were still casting ballots until about 9 p.m., delaying the release of election results.

“It’s not surprising,” said Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, which sent more than 500 volunteers to polling places across the state to observe operations.

“They’re not prepared,” Haseebullah said about the rural Nye county. “They don’t have enough machines to check people in, and they don’t have enough workers.”

Jacob Smith, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Nevada who was observing the Pahrump polling location, said only three voting machines were being utilized. Just after 7 p.m. the line was “slightly shorter,” but still appeared about two hours long, he said.

As of about 5:30 p.m., 76 percent of Nye County registered voters have cast their ballot in this election. Nearly 1,600 people had voted at the Bob Ruud community center, the only polling site in Pahrump.

Some locations in Washoe County were also seeing long wait times on Tuesday. Bethany Drysdale, a spokesperson for Washoe County, said there was a three-hour wait at the University of Nevada, Reno, when polls closed to additional voters at 7 p.m.

As of about 8:30 p.m., there were still 10 locations in Washoe County that still had voters in line. An additional 45 locations in the county have closed, Drysdale said.

Election officials have said early results won’t be released before all voters in line by 7 p.m. have a chance to vote, regardless of how long it takes. This is true of all polling places across Nevada.

Nye spokesman Arnold Knightly said a lack of machines is not causing the delays but the long wait times are because of 145 same-day registrations in Pahrump. He confirmed the three-hour wait at polling places.

Smith said the line at the Pahrump voting location has been long throughout Tuesday evening. Less than an hour before polls closed, Smith said the line was still “pretty massive,” with hundreds of people still waiting to vote.

“I think people are definitely frustrated, but they’re standing firm in their desire to vote,” Smith told the Review-Journal, adding that the line hasn’t shown “any sign of slowing down or stopping.”

Smith is one of dozens of attorneys the ACLU sent to observe the election process in Nevada on Tuesday. He had been at the Bob Ruud community center since early Tuesday morning and observed most voters casting their ballot in person, instead of dropping off mail-in ballots.

In addition to only three machines being used at the Pahrump location, voters were also able to fill out paper ballots, which Smith said appeared more time consuming.

“That was a choice the county made and I think that could be why Nye County is the only one seeing these massive lines,” he said about the number of machines.

This is a developing story Check back for updates.

Pahrump Valley Times staff writer Jimmy Romo contributed to this report.