Las Vegas, NV (AP) - The Clark County Commission has agreed to spend nearly $1 million to buy four high-speed counting machines to tabulate mail-in ballots for the upcoming primary and general elections.
The move comes after the Legislature made permanent last summer a law that automatically sends mail ballots to every active registered voter in Nevada elections.
More voters cast their ballots by mail in the 2020 election than any other way in both Clark County and statewide.
About 46.5% of Clark County voters cast their ballots by mail in 2020 — a total of 453,248, Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said.
About 42% voted during the two weeks of early voting (411,747) and only about 11% voted in person on Election Day — a total of 109,190. About 49,000 ballots were cast by mail in 2018, up from 22,339 in 2014.
Gloria told the commissioners on Tuesday that the county had applied for a grant to purchase the counting machines, but that a decision wouldn’t come in time for officials to buy them