Nye County voters cast their ballots on Election Day

Nye County registered voters cast their ballots at the Bob Ruud Community Center on Tuesday.

As Nye County’s population has grown, so has the number of registered voters. This year, the county had 33,547 registered voters, and 70 percent of eligible ballots had been received. This was an increase from the last general election. In the 2022 general election, 61 percent of registered voters cast their ballots.

According to Cori Freidhof, Nye County clerk, all voting went smoothly with no further mishaps. So far, there have been about 20 residents who have arrived to vote but turned away since they had already voted, she said.

Choosing to vote

Over a thousand voters voted in person at the general election this year at the Bob Ruud Community Center as of 3 p.m. on Tuesday. For voters like Jasmine Moses, a new Pahrump resident, she didn’t think she was going to vote this year.

“I was one of those people that didn’t want to vote,” said Moses. “Then I realized that either way it goes, they’re going to vote for me.”

To Moses, the right to vote is also special to her as she said there was a time when women weren’t allowed to vote. And this year she is voting with her local community.

“It’s pretty easy, you see it everywhere,” Moses said. “Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.”

At first Moses was leaning toward the Democratic Party, but later saw how involved Republicans were in her local community of Pahrump.

In the valley she’s seen flags and signs in support of Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and she believed she would be voting for him by the time she reached the end of the line, although she said that could change.

But Moses said she will not be voting red down the ballot. As she hasn’t been in Pahrump for over a year, she has learned the impact incumbent Democratic Congressman Steven Horsford has had on the valley and will be voting for his re-election.

Blue vote in an overly red county

Matthew Moore, 19, has lived in Pahrump all his life and this is the first year he is able to cast his ballot, but it won’t be red.

About a month ago Moore did a deep dive and made his final decision to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

“I grew up in a household that is very accepting of everybody,” Moore said. “And that’s helped me choose.”

And for a Nye County teacher, she is voting for the presidential candidate under whose administration she will feel safest, as a woman. Katherine Kares, a teacher, was never undecided in this election.

“As a teacher, I don’t make a lot of money, so my income is really important to me,” Kares said. “I can’t afford to have my taxes raised the way it was.”

Concerned about finances, Kares is not convinced that all the financial issues can be blamed on President Joe Biden, saying that he inherited Trump’s economy and became president during a global pandemic. Kares would also like to start a family in the next few years.

“There are states where I can’t live as a woman because it’s not safe being pregnant,” she said. “The reality is that Donald Trump’s America is going to take away my chance to be a mom, that’s where my priorities lie.”

Contact Jimmy Romo at jromo@pvtimes.com. Follow @JimmyRomo.News on Instagram.