On Monday, the Nevada Supreme Court convened at the Nevada State Capitol to certify the results of the 2024 general election.
The results of the Nevada presidential election and the U.S. Senate race were announced on Saturday, four days after Election Day.
Despite recent investments, Nevada needs to enhance its vote counting process. Although 90% of the votes were reported on the first day, the remaining 10% took several days to post.
While the initial vote results weren't posted until just before 10 p.m. on November 5th because of long voter lines, the main reason behind Nevada's slow vote count was mail voting. Ballots were still being counted on Saturday, provided they were postmarked by election day.
When asked if he will consider implementing tighter deadlines to address this issue, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar (D-NV) is hesitant to commit to specific plans at this time.
"I don't think there is any concrete idea at this moment. My job is to speak with those that run the elections, to speak with Clark County, to speak with Washoe County, to speak with our rural counties, to talk about what processes and implementations we can make. It's my responsibility to talk with the governor's office and then to talk with legislators and see the appetite for doing things we need to do. I don't think we have to touch existing legislation, but we can look at regulations or statutes that increase the operations of our local county officials," said Aguilar.
Governor Joe Lombardo expressed frustration on X about the Election Integrity Act he introduced during the 2023 regular session. The act would have required mail ballots to be received before polls closed. It was not given a chance of a hearing.
One new piece of technology that the state did not have the opportunity to use in this election was individual mail ballot tracking.
"Every mail ballot in Nevada has an individual tracker. We have the data, and we wanted to use this data in the election to tell voters how many mail ballots were outstanding and how many would be coming in after the election day. Unfortunately, we weren't comfortable with releasing that data, but we will get better at understanding it and dissecting it to give voters the transparency that they want," said Aguilar.
On December 17th, the six Nevada electors will gather on the University of Nevada, Reno campus to cast their final votes. The university is promoting more civic engagement among students and younger Nevadans. Former Nevada Governor and current UNR president Brian Sandoval will be present for the electorate submission.
