Early voting starts Saturday in Clark County

Election Day is Nov. 8, but if trends hold true, most Clark County voters already will have cast their ballots in the days prior.

That’s because most of the county’s voters take advantage of two weeks of early voting. In fact, Clark County reports that since 2000 more residents have voted before Election Day than on Election Day.

“They have 14 days to choose from to find a time and place that works for them to come out and vote,” said Joe Gloria, Clark County registrar of voters. “We try to set up where people frequent, like the mall.”

Early voting begins Saturday and ends Nov. 4. In Clark County, registered voters can choose from among 97 voting sites.

The county predicts more than 60 percent of the residents who will vote in this election will participate in early voting. Turnout is expected to be heaviest on the first and last days of early voting.

During the last presidential election in 2012, more than 436,000 county residents, about 51 percent of all registered voters in Clark County, voted early.

Gloria said those numbers are proof that the county’s early voting program saves taxpayers money.

“If I had all of those people voting on general election day, I’d have to have three times the number of voting machines and I’d have to increase the number of polling places by 50 percent,” he said.

As of Wednesday night, Clark County voter rolls listed 1,019,000 active registered voters. About 439,000 were Democrats, and about 296,000 were Republicans.

Nevada’s deadline to register to vote was Tuesday.

UNLV political science professor David Damore said he expects Democrat voters to show up in droves for early voting, while Republicans will have a stronger showing on Nov. 8.

“Some of this has to do with the fact that the Democrats have a more aggressive early voting operation, while many GOP voters are older and prefer the ritual of voting on Election Day,” he said.

For example, the Hillary Clinton campaign announced Thursday that pop star Katy Perry will hold an early-voting rally Saturday afternoon on the UNLV campus. On Sunday, President Barack Obama will highlight the importance of early voting during an appearance in North Las Vegas.

Damore added he believes that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s claims of a rigged election will have “minimal to no effect” on voter turnout.

“To the degree that turnout may be lower this year — and I am not sure it will be — it is likely to have more to do with the perceptions of the candidates and the tenor of the campaign than any fear that the process is not on the up and up,” Damore said.

Early Voting in Nevada by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Find@davidsonlvrj on Twitter.