Nye County residents reminded to update voter registration info

The 2020 primary election is less than two months away and with the novel coronavirus taking its toll in the Silver State, Nevada’s election officials have decided to change to an all-mail-in ballot system. Absentee ballots will begin making their way to homes around Nevada in just three weeks time and Nye County Clerk Sam Merlino wants all county voters to be prepared for the new process.

“I just wanted to remind everyone, if they don’t already know, we’re going to be having an all-mail-in primary election, which means all active voters will be receiving a ballot in the mail,” Merlino told commissioners and the public during the Nye County Commission’s Tuesday, April 7 meeting. “I do want to encourage everyone to update your registration, whether it’s your address or your party or just to register for the first time.”

Merlino said a majority of ballots will be mailed out by May 1 and stressed the importance of voters making certain all of their voter information is accurate, otherwise they may have difficulties in participating in the 2020 primary election.

“It will cause a delay if it has to come back to us as undeliverable or if you haven’t changed your party, that replacement ballot will take some time,” Merlino explained.

Voters can check their registration information online and those who have yet to register to vote can also complete that process by visiting www.registertovotenv.gov

Nye County Commissioner Donna Cox took a moment during the April 7 meeting to clarify when those absentee ballots can be turned in. “On that primary election, are the ballots to be sent back at any time between May 1 and June 9?”

Merlino confirmed that and explained that ballots are returnable by mail, with the prepaid postage costs covered by the state. Ballots can be mailed back as soon as they are received. All ballots must be postmarked by June 9 and received by the clerk’s office no later than seven days following the primary election. This, of course, means that residents and candidates will not know the official winners of the primary races until several days following Primary Election Day on June 9.

“Anyone who does not want to return it by mail can turn it in to either clerk’s office by hand,” Merlino noted. Ballots can be dropped off in person during regular business hours at the Nye County Clerk’s Office, 1520 E. Basin Avenue in Pahrump and 101 Radar Road in Tonopah, at any point between when they are received and the June 9 primary.

Hand-delivered ballots will also be accepted during early voting, scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 23; 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 26 through May 29; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 30 and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on June 1 through June 5 at the aforementioned locations. The clerk’s offices will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 9 but Merlino encouraged residents not to wait until the last minute, because counting the paper ballots is a time-consuming process.

“And if anyone does decide to return their ballot in person by hand, it has to be turned in by that individual. No one can turn in someone else’s ballot, it will be rejected,” Merlino noted. “That’s something to get out there. Don’t think you are going to be able to gather up a bunch of ballots and turn them into our office because we will not accept them that way. It has to be the person who voted the ballot who turns in the ballot by hand.”

Cox asked about the timeline for counting those ballots and how that will effect the release of results from the primary election.

“The way the law is now, as long as those ballots are postmarked by June 9 we have to accept them for seven days after the election. So we will be counting ballots for probably two weeks. We can actually start processing them the week before but we can’t release results until election night,” Merlino stated.

“So then the candidates won’t really know (on election night) if they have been elected or not… Talk about tension,” Cox commented.

“Between same-day registration and the change to absentee ballots, absolutely, I suggest everybody go home and go to bed on election night and celebrate the next week,” Merlino responded.

Nye County Commissioner Debra Strickland then jumped in to ask when candidates and the public can expect to see results of the election.

Merlino said the clerk’s office is required to post the results as they are on election night but complete results will not be immediately available, so rather than doing a piecemeal release over several days, she plans to do two sets of results, those on election night and the remainder of the vote counts a week later.

“Provisional ballots (for same-day registration voters), we will count those as soon as we are able… because we have to make sure they haven’t voted anywhere else in the state before we can count those ballots,” Merlino detailed. “It’s just going to be an ongoing process throughout the week. We will probably report results election night and then since it’s up until that next Thursday that we can accept ballots in the mail, we will probably release those numbers Friday morning before the canvass of the results.”

“That sounds good to me,” Strickland said. “It makes it a lot easier on the candidates. That’s going to be a hard week.”

Merlino said she hopes there will not be a large amount of outstanding ballots but with this process completely new, it’s difficult to predict how the primary voting will turn out.

There have been some around the state who have expressed reservations over the switch to an all absentee ballot primary election, citing concerns about the security of those ballots. Mail-in voting is hardly a new process, however, and election officials have been handling absentee ballots for many years. Merlino reassured the community that their ballots will get the utmost security and noted that if a voter feels uncomfortable mailing a ballot, they can be taken to the clerk’s office on Election Day.

“All 17 county clerks and registrars in Nevada, along with our secretary of state, determined that an all-mail-in primary election was necessary in order to protect the health and safety of voters and election workers. In doing so, it is our priority to conduct the election with security, fairness and accuracy while allowing voters to vote safely,” Merlino told the Pahrump Valley Times.

“Nye County processes up to 5,000 absentee and mail-in ballots during a normal election year and there are a lot of checks and balances in place that we adhere to,” Merlino continued. “We will be using those same checks and balances for this election, but on a much larger scale. We will still conduct signature verification like we do at the polls and voters will be able to drop their ballots off at the clerk’s office in person rather than go through the mail system, if they feel more comfortable doing so.”

The Nye County Clerk’s Office can be reached at 775-751-7049 in Pahrump and 775-482-8134 in Tonopah.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com