LAS VEGAS — Voters at some Las Vegas-area polling places Tuesday were waiting in lines of three hours or more despite Nevada officials encouraging people to cast their primary election ballots by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nevada Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Wayne Thorley said his office had received a report of a three-hour wait at one of only three polling places set up in Las Vegas-area Clark County, though he didn’t know which location.
At one Las Vegas-area polling place, the Clark County Election Department office, voters told The Associated Press they had been waiting for four and five hours to vote.
Charles Wallace said he showed up at 11:30 a.m. at the Clark County Election Department to vote. At 4:30 p.m., he was still in line, about eight people away from voting.
“When I first got here they said it was going to be an hour. I was like OK. And once I got in, there was like a long, long, long line,” he said. “It’s moving but it’s not fast. It’s moving though.”
Eric Ellis, 55, said he got in line about 12:30 p.m. and was still waiting in line at 4:45 p.m.
Clark County’s chief election official Joe Gloria said there were lines at all three Las Vegas-area polling places but when told of the voters the AP talked to, he said “I wasn’t aware that the wait was that long. We’re doing everything we can do to process voters as fast as we can.”
Nevada reduced in-person voting sites for the primary because of the coronavirus and instead sent absentee ballots to voters that could be mailed back or dropped off. For those that still showed up at the limited number of polling places, they were casting ballots Tuesday on paper rather than voting machines to limit contact with shared surfaces.
Gloria said when voters showed up at the polls, ballots have to be printed on demand as voters walk in the door because they must match the voter’s precinct and party affiliation. He said most voters showing up in-person Tuesday should have received a ballot in the mail.
In northern Nevada, wait times were about an hour in Washoe County and polling places were seeing little activity elsewhere in the state, Thorley said. There were no reports of problems outside of long lines.
Nevada preserved the option to vote in person partly to accommodate a new law allowing people to register to vote on Election Day.
Turnout by mid-morning was 22%, and the secretary of state’s office was predicting turnout could reach 25% — which would be the highest in a decade for a Nevada primary.
The top-ticket races include Nevada’s four U.S. House seats, but the incumbents — three Democrats and a Republican — are expected to sail through primary challenges. The biggest question Tuesday was which candidates will try to unseat them in November.
Lines were reported at three sites in and around Las Vegas. Clark County elections spokesman Dan Kulin acknowledged that there were waits but declined to estimate how long they were at the community centers east and west of the Las Vegas Strip and at the county Elections Department office in North Las Vegas.
In northern Nevada, voters waited from half an hour to 90 minutes at Washoe County’s only polling place in Reno.
“It’s busy,” Washoe County Registrar of Voters Deanna Spikula said. “With the paper ballots, even though the volume has been quite significant for our office, everything has run very smoothly.”
Ryan and Lana Caddel of neighboring Sparks said they went to a post office Monday to personally drop their absentee ballots in the mail.
“We’ve had our mail taken out of our mailbox before,” Lana Caddel said.
“This way, we’ve given our ballot to the federal government,” Ryan Caddel added.
He said he doesn’t always vote in primaries and might have skipped this one if not for the convenience of the mail-in ballot.
Two of the closest watched races were Republican primaries for Nevada’s 3rd and 4th Congressional Districts. Both U.S. House seats are held by Democrats but could flip to Republicans in November, drawing a number of GOP contenders to the primary.
Republicans have six candidates to choose from in Nevada’s 3rd District, which encompasses southwest Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City and Laughlin. They include former professional wrestler Dan Rodimer and former State Treasurer Dan Schwartz.
Democratic Rep. Susie Lee was facing two challengers in the primary, but she was considered a heavy favorite.
Nevada’s 4th District, held by Democrat Steven Horsford, has drawn eight Republicans to the race, including former state lawmaker Jim Marchant and business owner and former Miss Nevada Lisa Song Sutton, who recently acknowledged she hasn’t voted in 12 years.
Horsford’s performance in the primary will be watched closely after he acknowledged having a yearslong extramarital affair, but he’s not expected to face any serious challenge.
In northern Nevada, Republican Mark Amodei is expected to easily fend off two challengers to his 2nd District seat. Though Amodei is expected to win reelection in the Republican-heavy district in November, Democrats hoping to improve their numbers are lining up to challenge him.
Seven Democrats were vying to become the nominee to take on Amodei, including retired mountaineer and actress Patricia Ackerman, former journalist Ed Cohen and former Obama administration official Clint Koble.
In Nevada’s 1st District, encompassing the casino-lined Las Vegas Strip, incumbent Democrat Dina Titus was expected to fend off two poorly funded challengers.
Four Republicans were seeking her seat, but only one has filed a campaign finance report, and it disclosed little fundraising. Whoever wins the GOP primary will face a likely insurmountable challenge against Titus in the Democrat-heavy district.
Voters also will settle intraparty contests in nearly 30 state Senate and Assembly races and narrow the field in nonpartisan races for two state Supreme Court seats, nearly two dozen family and district court judgeships, three university regent races and three Board of Education contests.
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Associated Press writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, Ken Ritter in Las Vegas and Sam Metz in Carson City contributed to this report.
