Early voter numbers increase over last election

Almost twice as many Republicans voted early for this general election as Democrats in Nye County.

There were already 6,324 early votes cast in the 2014 election when early voting ended Friday, 3,440 went to the polls the first week, 2,884 the second week, according to figures from the Nye County Clerk’s office. The busiest day was Tuesday, Oct. 21 with 654 votes cast.

There were 3,266 registered Republicans who voted early, 51.6 percent of the total, as opposed to 1,768 Democrats, 28 percent. Another 1,290 were from other parties, comprising another one-fifth of the early voters.

That would represent a big jump from the 3,378 voters who voted early in the last presidential mid-term general election in 2010, when almost 38 percent of the 8,896 votes cast were early votes.

The clerk’s office reported there were 726 absentee ballots cast this election and 204 mail-in ballots.