The 2020 General Election ballots were received at the Reno Main Post Office and mailed on schedule, Registrar of Voters Deanna Spikula told media during a video press conference on Monday.
Voters can expect to receive them as early as Tuesday. Spikula had previously hoped to push up the delivery date, but due to high demand with the printing vendor, the timeline was revised to its original delivery date.
During the press conference, Spikula reminded media that tomorrow, October 6, is the last day to register to vote by mail, at the DMV or at other outside agencies. After October 6, voter registration must be done online or in person at a polling location, and registrants must have a valid Nevada driver’s license or I.D. card.
“New residents who may not have a Nevada driver’s license yet, or those who have recently moved and have not updated their voter registration should go online and register today before the October 6 deadline,” Spikula said.
Nevada law requires the county to mail ballots out at least 20 days before election day. By mailing them on October 5, voters will still have nearly 30 days to cast their ballots.
"This will give people a little more time to be able to decide whether they want to vote their mail-in ballot and actually get it voted and returned to us or they can choose to vote in-person," Spikula said.
Early voting runs from October 17 to October 30. Election Day is November 3.
In-person voting will be a little bit different than in years past because of COVID-19 restrictions. Washoe County typically has about 90 polling locations on election day. This year, it will only have 29. It will also have 15 early voting sites and 15 additional ballot drop-off locations. Locations like schools will offer more room for machines and social distancing. Lawlor Events Center and the Reno-Sparks Convention Center will offer the most space.
"They can handle the in-person voting, the capacity limitations, the social distancing, making sure our machines are apart and our intake stations are apart," Spikula said.
Spikula is working with democrats and republicans to allow poll observers on-site, depending on the size of the polling place.
"We can't have one party have six people observing and the other party not get any, so we're making sure that we're working with them," Spikula said.
A high number of people are also signing up to serve as poll workers during early voting and election day. Spikula says Washoe County needs 800-1,000 workers and that nearly 1,700 people have already offered.
"I couldn't be more pleased with that community outreach that we've had and their response and just how wonderful Washoe County is and our citizens are here in Washoe," Spikula said.
Voters will have the ability to utilize some new technology during this year's election. One of them is a "wait times" application that people can use on their personal device or computer. It lets them see which polling place has the longest line.
"This is going to give you information about the most convenient location where you may or want to vote early or on election day and it also gives the estimated wait times of each of those locations," Spikula said.
The registrar of voters hopes the app will help reduce the wait times at some of the high-traffic areas.
"I'm hoping we'll spread out the people from just hitting one or two locations really hard to spreading out that burden to all of our locations," Spikula said.
Washoe County is mailing out the sample ballots, one week prior to early voting. For anyone who does not want to wait for their sample ballot to arrive, they can go to the county's website to download, fill it out and print it. In-person voters are encouraged to take the sample ballot with them to vote.
"So that they can get processed faster and then also they can get through the voting process on our in-person machines quicker," Spikula said.
People who decide to vote by mail are encouraged to sign up for BallotTrax. It allows voters to track their ballot as it makes its way through the mail system until the vote is recorded. People can sign up for alerts through email, text or voicemail.
"The more information people have at their fingertips as far as where their ballot is and the sooner we can address those concerns, the better for all of our voters," Spikula said.
Mail ballots have to be delivered in-person by 7:00 on election day or post-marked no later than November 3. The official canvass of the vote will be November 16. To adjust for fewer polling places, the county will extend early voting hours. Every location will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. for the 14 days of early voting. Polling places are open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on election day.
