Early voting is in its seventh day and Nevada is already seeing high voter turnout. Voters have been lining up at different polling places around the state to vote in-person but even more have mailed their ballots in. Don Clevidence is a Sparks resident who is voting for the first time at the age of 73. He decided to drop his paper ballot off.
"I didn't want to stand in line for who knows how long so that was the easy way of doing it," Clevidence said.
Nearly 1.8 million active voters are registered in Nevada. 516,378 have already voted for a 28.7 percent voter turnout rate. 304,448 of them have returned a mail ballot while 211,930 have voted early, in-person.
"This has been an absolutely amazing turnout in comparison to even other elections from 2018 and 2016," Heather Carmen, Washoe County Assistant Registrar of Voters said.
In previous elections, early voting is the most popular way to vote. Carmen says Washoe County's early voting numbers are on track with those elections, and the higher numbers are mostly because of the mail ballots.
"I think it's gonna be a record turnout for our community here as far as the percentage of people that appear to vote," Carmen said.
In Washoe County, the turnout rate is already 37.32 percent with 11 days to go until Election Day. 69,906 voters have mailed their ballots and 42,948 have voted in-person. The line got fairly long at certain parts of the day at the Spanish Springs Library but voters did not seem to mind the wait.
"I think voting in-person is the most secure way to vote and my dad fought for the rights to vote, so it's extremely important for us, personally, to exercise that right," Ashley Painter, Spanish Springs voter said.
"I think it's a personal thing about expressing my opinion to vote and to show up in-person," Mary Ann Burns-Carl, Sparks voter said.
"I think it's great that you have the option to do either way," Tami Bradshaw, Spanish Springs voter said. "I think some people, it's just easier to put the ballot in the mail and other people want to come down."
Others say they do not trust the mail ballot system and decided to vote in-person.
"Super easy," Kevin Notterman, Sun Valley voter said. "They check you in, they give you a card, you go over to your machine and you just vote. The voting took maybe 10 minutes."
Voters say they are not surprised that so many more people are voting by mail, this election. Every active voter in the state was supposed to receive an absentee ballot. If they decide to vote in-person, they either have to surrender the paper ballot or sign an affidavit, promising that they will not try to vote twice. Some say voting by mail is a safe way to cast their ballot without putting themselves in danger of catching COVID-19.
"I think that there's a lot of people who are afraid of things and feel like that's a safe way to vote, and I can respect that," Painter said.
"I think people just don't want to come out and deal with the people," Burns-Carl said. "I think they're concerned."
Carmen says it is possible that the same number, or even more voters will vote by mail as those who vote in person, leading to a possible record voter turnout.
The weekend is expected to be a busy time for voting. It will be the last weekend to do so since early voting ends Friday, October 30.
"There's individuals that will be maybe off work or will have the time to come out and do it and with our longer hours as well," Carmen said. "That gives voters more opportunity to go out there."
Carmen is reminding voters to use the "Wait times" feature on the Washoe County website to show where the shortest lines will be at each of the 15 polling places.
