When will Nevada release its 2024 election results?
Nevada was slow to count its votes in past elections — drawing national attention for its delays — but election officials are promising a big improvement this year.
The Nevada secretary of state’s office anticipates the first batch of results will be released shortly after it has confirmed all polls are closed and the last voter has voted on election night.
That first batch of election results is expected to have every vote cast before Election Day, including mail ballots and in-person early votes. Counties can start tabulating in-person early votes at 8 a.m. on Election Day.
As of Monday morning, more than 1 million votes have been cast in Nevada, 52.4 percent of the state’s total registered voters, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.
Results could be delayed, however, if there is a court order to keep a polling site open past 7 p.m. on Tuesday, whether that’s because of a technical issue or the weather, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Following that first batch of results, counties will continue releasing updates as they tabulate votes cast on Election Day and mail ballots returned on Tuesday.
Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said the process will be similar to that of the June primary, when counties released the first large chunk of results within 10 minutes of confirming that all polls in Nevada were closed.
“Of course, this election is different than the June primary, with much higher turnout, but we’re hopeful the process will help us deliver election results as close to election night as possible for all of you to analyze and call races,” Aguilar said during a media call on Friday.
Votes cast on Election Day will take time to process because the voting machines are not hooked up to the internet, according to an official with the secretary of state’s office. The thumb drives from those in-person voting machines must be physically taken to the county’s tabulation computer.
While the secretary of state’s office hopes to see a large batch of results released quickly, unofficial results will not be released until Nov. 12, which is also the deadline for voters to cure their signatures, if necessary.
Mail ballots will be counted if they are postmarked on or before Election Day and are received by the county clerk no later than 5 p.m. on Saturday, four days after the election.
If a postmark cannot be determined, and the ballot is received no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, the third day after the election, it will be deemed to have been mailed on or before Election Day and will be counted, according to state statute and the results of a court ruling late last month.
For a winner to be determined, the public instead turns to outlets like The Associated Press to analyze the results and call races as early as possible.
“We will make the race call when we are absolutely certain that there is no path forward for the trailing candidate to overtake the leading candidate,” Anna Johnson Washington Bureau Chief for the AP, previously told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
If a race is extremely tight, like the presidential race is expected to be, Nevadans will have to wait for more vote totals to come in before a race can be called, Johnson said.
To keep current with election results after they are released, visit lvrj.com/results or silverstateelection.nv.gov.
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.