All eyes are on polling sites Tuesday, from Metro, school police to ACLU

A hefty amount of attention is expected to be trained on the activities at and around polling places Tuesday as Nevadans cast their ballots.

Poll-watching has emerged as a central issue in this year’s presidential race, with GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s mantra that the bruising contest he and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton have been running for the White House is “rigged.”

The Trump campaign over the weekend used a Las Vegas example to try to amplify the argument that the election is being manipulated, charging that polls were incorrectly kept open late on the final day of early voting Friday. Clark County officials countered that argument over the weekend.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada has doubled from 2012 the number of trained volunteers who will be deployed to polling places Tuesday in a nonpartisan effort to ensure that voters aren’t intimidated or harassed and if they’re eligible voters, denied the right to cast their ballot.

Those volunteers will be at close to 100 Las Vegas Valley sites and about 50 polling places in the Reno area, ACLU Executive Director Tod Story said.

Story acknowledged a “change in rhetoric with some candidates expressing doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome,” but said there’s no reason to believe there’s an issue with the voting system in place in Nevada.

ACLU volunteers will be sent to sites where high levels of turnout are expected, areas with larger concentrations of minority voters and places where someone’s right to vote might be challenged, he said.

Metropolitan Police Department Capt. Charles Hank said the agency has not received any reports of threats to polling places, but Las Vegas police will still be vigilant.

The department’s counterterrorism center plans to monitor election operations, and officers will drive by polling places throughout the day, Hank said.

The department will not have extra officers covering Election Day shifts, except for some working overtime to help transport the election results.

Many schools are serving as polling places, so the Clark County School District police will have a presence at some locations.

Hank said the 2016 election has been especially “contentious,” but added that there haven’t been any serious problems with the general election so far. There were some minor events during early voting but none that warranted arrests.

“We encourage you to go out and vote,” Hank said. “It is safe to do so.”

Hank said people should plan to be in line to vote before 7 p.m., and the community is encouraged to report anything suspicious to election staff or the police.

Anyone who has questions can ask designated leaders at polling locations, county spokesman Dan Kulin said.

AT THE POLLS

Under Nevada law, members of the public can observe voting at polling places, and no credentials are required. “Team leaders” at Clark County polling locations will ask observers to fill out a form before they begin observation and to stay in a designated location at the polling place.

Observers are barred from disrupting voting and election workers, electioneering or campaigning, which includes wearing or toting campaign items into the voting area, talking to voters, using cellphones and taking photos, video or sound recording.

Electioneering or campaigning within 100 feet of a polling place entrance is prohibited. Barred activities include distributing fliers, posting signs, using loudspeakers, selling or wearing political insignia and soliciting signatures.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, and people who are in line to vote before 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote. Ballots are available in English, Spanish and Tagalog. Bilingual poll workers will be stationed at locations where they’re expected to be needed, Kulin said.

There are a record-setting number of active, registered voters in Nevada, as of the close of registration Oct. 18, according to the Nevada secretary of state’s office.

More than half of active voters in the county cast their ballots either by mail or in person during the early voting period that ended Friday.

As of the close of the registration period Oct. 18, Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske reported 1,464,819 people were registered to vote in Nevada, a record-setting number that’s an increase of 21 percent or 251,626 on top of the registered voter number from 2014. Most of those active registered voters — more than 1 million — are in Clark County.

Review-Journal writer Wesley Juhl contributed to this report. Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Follow @JamieMunksRJ on Twitter.