Clark County voting turnout is mostly fair play — PHOTOS
Clark County voters turned out in strength this election season, with 62 percent of registered voters casting ballots.
Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin said things were mostly normal at polling places. But reports of poll worker intimidation surfaced at four valley high schools after polls closed.
“We’ve worked very hard to educate voters about the issues that matter most, and now what we’re hearing is that there is poll worker intimidation happening at four locations here in Southern Nevada,” Annette Magnus, executive director of the Institute for a Progressive Nevada and Battle Born Nevada, said in an email.
“Del Sol High School actually had the police called,” she said.
In the email, she said Trump supporters demanded to see ballots and to watch them as they were taken to the election department for counting. Magnus said there were similar reports at Green Valley, Liberty and Bonanza high schools.
Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Michael Rodriguez confirmed that officers had been dispatched to Del Sol High School after reports of a Trump supporter attempting to tally votes, possibly intimidating poll workers.
Rodriguez said Metro was at the scene shortly but didn’t arrest or cite anyone because the Clark County School District Police was the primary agency on the call.
Lines were long in the morning, slow but steady throughout the day and heavy again in the evening, toward the 7 p.m. poll closings.
More than 767,000 Nevadans — more than half of the state’s active registered voters — voted early in this year’s general election. Registered Democrats in Nevada cast 46,000 more ballots this year in early voting than Republicans, just shy of the 48,000-vote lead Democrats took into Election Day 2012, when President Barack Obama carried the state.
Early Tuesday afternoon, police responded to the North Las Vegas Airport polling place, where election officials reported a voter intimidation complaint against a registered observer.
The polling place’s team leader, Allan Gutierrez, said election observer Albert Goldberg “was getting too close” to where other observers were talking to voters in the parking lot and acting “in an intimidating fashion.”
“I asked him to be courteous and give them more room. I told him he was invading their personal space,” Gutierrez said.
Goldberg declined to be interviewed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He said he was “following orders” but wouldn’t say what person or organization was giving him those orders.
After a third North Las Vegas police patrol vehicle arrived to speak to an election official, Goldberg drove away from the polling station.
Nonpartisan and partisan poll watchers were keeping a close eye on polling places for voter intimidation, voter fraud or other nefarious activities.
“We’re just here to make sure everyone’s vote is counted, that no one is intimidated as they’re trying to vote and that everyone can exercise their right to vote on this very important day,” Steven Ury, an “election protection” volunteer for the American Civil Liberties Union saidat the Wendell Williams Elementary School polling place.
He said observers “haven’t noticed anything systemic happening in Southern Nevada today.”
Voters are keeping a keen eye out, too.
A woman at Hyde Park Middle School complained to a poll worker that the paper record of her vote had not printed. It actually had, but she couldn’t see it until the poll worker pushed aside the privacy drape at her voting station, revealing her choices.
PRESIDENTIAL PREFERENCES
The lines seemed to move fairly quickly Tuesday morning, but a few hiccups were reported.
At the Rainbow Library polling station at Buffalo Drive and Cheyenne Avenue, more than half the voting machines were out of commission for two hours, apparently because there weren’t enough electronic cards available to run them.
A volunteer at the site said more cards were requested at 5:30 a.m. By about 9 a.m., the cards arrived, and the line was moving again.
Outside the theater at Desert Pines High School, just down Washington Avenue from Freedom Park, Wynn casino employee Miriam Beltran was among the first people in line. Dressed in her work uniform, she quickly submitted her vote and rushed to drop off her kids at a babysitter’s house before her shift.
It was 77-year-old Catalina Garcia’s first time voting. Garcia moved from Mexico to the United States 18 years ago and became a citizen in July.
She said she felt there were many things in jeopardy during this election season. She voted for democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
“I hope that fool does not win,” she said of Republican nominee Donald Trump. “What we need is a change and an immigration reform.”
Tim McCracken was first in line at the Staton Elementary School polling place in the west Las Vegas Valley.
The Republican voting for Trump said: “People in America need to stand up and say what they believe in, and this is one way to do it.”
McCracken said he is concerned about the future makeup of the Supreme Court, border patrol and “most important, jobs.”
Democrat Ping Levitt said she thinks this is an important election with a lot of issues, but “the most important thing is that we want a president that’s fit for the position, who has the quality and integrity and decency to be a president.”
#RJNow #Democrat Ping Levitt wants a president "fit for the position" with decency and integrity. pic.twitter.com/8ADSRIL5V9
— Keith Rogers (@KeithRogers2) November 8, 2016
Roger Giuliani wouldn’t say whether he was a Democrat or Republican but came when the polls opened to do his “civic duty and be a good American and vote. This is what makes America great,” he said.
An undecided voter turned up at the polling site at Shadow Hills Church, on Vegas Drive near Buffalo Drive. Joe, 29, said he had “no idea” whom he was going to vote for as of 8 a.m. Tuesday. Joe, who did not want to give his last name, said he was so unhappy with the candidates that he procrastinated doing more substantive research to help him make up his mind.
“I think in some ways I will feel sicker when it’s over, because there’s no going back on my decision,” he said.
At Brian and Teri Cram Middle School at about 2 p.m., a North Las Vegas fire engine pulled into the parking lot and dropped off a firefighter who hurried inside of the polling place to vote. A few minutes later, the man rushed back out and hopped in the truck, which had moved near a voting sign along the road, out of the way of other voters’ cars.
VOTERS MAKE TOUGH CHOICES
Eddie Solis, 38, cast his ballot at Shadow Hills Church with a sheet of paper taped to the back of his shirt that read, “Don’t vote based on emotion, vote as an American.”
The Costa Rican-American said people assume that he is a Democrat or that he is offended by certain rhetoric because he is Latino.
“The heat comes from the same Latino people,” he said. “Just because I speak Spanish, they are telling me I have do this and that. They push you to vote a way that you don’t want to.”
He said he felt that supporting Republican candidates would make everybody more “secure.”
“We all want what’s better for the country,” Solis said. “I just hope that everybody gets along after this.”
Voters at one polling place in the southwest valley saw the name “Tarkanian” twice: Once on their way in to vote at Tarkanian Middle School, and again on their ballot, where Danny Tarkanian was a candidate in the 3rd Congressional District. The school is named after Danny’s parents, current Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian and Hall of Fame Basketball Coach Jerry Tarkanian.
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.
Carol Cling, Rachel Crosby, Michael Scott Davidson, Rocio Hernandez, Sandy Lopez, Jamie Munks, Nicole Raz, Jeff Scheid and Pashtana Usufzy contributed to this report. Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Follow @KeithRogers2 on Twitter. Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.
