Nevada Secretary of State: 190,150 ballots still have to be counted in Nevada

LAS VEGAS (NewsNation Now) — All eyes are still on Nevada, as the nation waits to see who will win the state’s 6 electoral votes in the 2020 Presidential Election.

Thursday afternoon, Clark County Nevada tweeted that officials were working to count about 51,000 ballots. They expect those tabulations to be released Friday at around 9 a.m. PST.

Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske released a statement Thursday to give an update on the number of ballots that still have to be counted in Nevada stating that there were more than 190,000 ballots still needed to be counted as of the tally Thursday morning.

“After this morning’s vote tally update, approximately 190,150 ballots statewide remain to be counted. Of this total, 123,554 are ballots that were either returned by mail or dropped offin person at a ballot drop-off location. The remaining 66,596 are ballots that were cast in person at a polling place, either during early voting or on Election Day, by voters who took advantage of Nevada’s new same-day voter registration law. Of the total ballots remaining to be counted, 90 percent are in Clark County.

Under Nevada law, mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received no later than 5:00 pm on November 10 will be counted. This means there is an unknown number of ballots currently in the U.S. Postal Service mail stream that contain a postmark dated November 3 or earlier that will ultimately be counted if they arrive by 5:00 pm on November 10. We cannot estimate with any degree of accuracy how many ballots might fall into this category.

In addition to the approximately 190,650 ballots remaining to be counted, there are two categories of ballots that are uncounted and will remain uncounted unless the voter takes the required action necessary for the ballot to be counted. First, there are approximately 2,500 provisional ballots that were cast under the requirements of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). These ballots will only be counted if the voter satisfies the required conditions by 5:00 p.m. on November 6. Second, there are approximately 3,500 mail ballots that require a signature cure.

A signature cure is needed if the voter forgets to sign their ballot return envelope or if the signature on their ballot return envelope does not match the signature on file for the voter. Voters have until 5:00 pm on November 12 to successfully cure their signature.

Under state law, all ballots must be counted by the end of the day on November 12. This means complete unofficial election results will not be available until the morning of November 13. Election results do not become official until after certification. Certification must occur on or before November 16.”

On Thursday evening, the Nevada Republican Party tweeted the following:

“Our lawyers just sent a criminal referral to AG Barr regarding at least 3,062 instances of voter fraud. We expect that number to grow substantially. Thousands of individuals have been identified who appear to have violated the law by casting ballots after they moved from NV.”

On Tuesday, NewsNation affiliate KLAS reported 30 polling locations were ordered by a judge to stay open an extra hour. The Trump campaign and Nevada Republican Party filed a lawsuit to keep polls open after some locations got a late start due to technical issues.

On Wednesday, Nevada Deputy Secretary of State for Elections, Wayne Thorley said: “No. No evidence whatsoever of coordinated, widespread voter fraud. We have received a handful of complaints and allegations, and they’re just allegations at this point, unproven, that we’re looking into. But no. No evidence of voter fraud.”

He says less than 10 allegations are being investigated and that law enforcement was involved.

Early Thursday, an election official for Nevada’s most populous county said vote counting is still underway.

Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria said 63,262 ballots still need to be counted for Clark County alone. Those ballots were mostly cast by voters who registered on Election Day and will be counted after officials verify their eligibility to be included.

Gloria said his staff has started counting more than 51,000 ballots Thursday alone. Clark County has an estimated population of more than 2.2 million people and is where more than 75% of the state resides.

When asked about reports and allegations made by the Trump campaign, Gloria said he “was not aware of any improper ballots being processed.”

Gloria said he had talked to the woman the Trump campaign claimed had an improper ballot and that her issue had been resolved.

He said he hoped to have the bulk of the ballots counted by Saturday or Sunday saying the goal was to not be fast but to be accurate.

Overall, officials have tallied a little more than three-quarters of the state’s expected vote. Under state law, ballots postmarked by Election Day will still be counted if they arrive by Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The Associated Press has not yet declared a winner in the state of Nevada because it is too early to call the race there between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

About 76 percent of the expected votes are in and Biden led by roughly 11,000 votes Thursday afternoon.

But there are outstanding ballots left to be counted in the coming days. Under state law, they can still be accepted so long as they were postmarked by the Nov. 3 Election Day.

Trump narrowly lost Nevada in 2016 as the state has trended toward the Democrats in the past decade. The last Republican presidential contender to win the state was George W. Bush in 2004

NewsNation’s television broadcast and digital properties relies on the AP for all vote counting and race calls. NewsNation chose to rely on the AP because they call races based on the facts.

The Nevada Secretary of State’s Elections Division announced early Wednesday that no further election results updates would come until Thursday.

The state said in a statement on Twitter that it has counted all in-person early and in-person Election Day votes, as well as mail ballots through Nov. 2. Nevada elections officials still need to count mail ballots received on Election Day, mail ballots that will be received over the next week and provisional ballots.

As of Thursday morning, President Donald Trump has 214 Electoral College votes to Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s 264 as of the latest AP race call of Michigan for Biden.