Nevada’s 2020 early and mail voting surpasses 2016 vote totals

With Election Day still on the near horizon, more Nevadans have already cast a ballot in the 2020 presidential election than did so in 2016, according to turnout statistics released by the Nevada secretary of state’s office Monday morning.

As of 8:30 a.m., 1,125,580 ballots have been submitted statewide in this year’s general election. More than 582,000 Nevadans have voted by mail, and about 543,000 participated in-person through the state’s early voting period (Oct. 17-30).

These figures do not include mail ballots collected on Monday. Traditional Election Day polling places open at 7 a.m. Tuesday, and mail ballots postmarked by Tuesday will be counted if received before Nov. 10.

In 2016, 1,125,429 people voted in the general election: 702,387 during early voting, 78,572 through mail and absentee ballots and 344,470 on Election Day.

The current 2020 turnout represents about 62 percent of the state’s active voter base. About 77 percent of active registered voters cast ballots in 2016.

Nevadans can still register to vote through same-day registration at polling places on Tuesday.

Democrats hold a large lead in mail ballot returns so far, but Republicans have narrowed the overall gap by voting early in greater numbers.

Overall, about 40 percent of ballots have come from Democrats, 36 percent from Republicans and 25 percent from nonpartisan or third party voters.

Much of the Democratic lead is buoyed, as it historically often is, by populous Clark County, where Republicans trail by a little less than 12 percent. The GOP holds a lead, and typically a commanding one, in every other county except for Washoe, where Democrats are up by less than 2,000 votes.

Democrats swung Washoe voter registration in their direction earlier in the year, but Republicans have since regained a lead of less than 1,000 registered voters.

Also Monday, the secretary of state posted final voter registration numbers for the state before the election. Democrats lead Republicans 37.3 percent to 32.5 percent, a lead of more than 87,000 active registered voters. Nonpartisans accounted for an addition 23.6 percent of the active registered voters.

All told, there are 1,821,356 active registered voters in Nevada, with nearly 1.3 million in Clark County, nearly 306,000 in Washoe county and the rest spread throughout Nevada’s rural areas.

Contact Rory Appleton at rappleton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0276. Follow @RoryDoesPhonics on Twitter.