Biden builds on lead over Trump in Nevada
President-elect Joe Biden increased his lead over President Donald Trump to 34,283 votes, 664,162 to 629,879 — 50.17 percent to 47.58 — in new updates released by the Nevada Secretary of State’s office on Sunday.
On Saturday, Biden led by 27,530 votes.
The Associated Press declared Biden the winner in the presidential race in Nevada and overall victor on Saturday. Election officials in the Silver State will continue to count votes until at least Wednesday.
Biden’s margin over Trump — 2.59 percent — is now larger than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 victory in Nevada.
Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria said the state’s most populous county counted about 23,000 mail ballots Saturday and was working on a stack of 16,000 on Sunday.
Less than 2,000 ballots remain in the signature cure phase. Voters with unsigned or mismatched ballot envelope signatures have until Thursday to fix the problem and be counted.
About 60,000 provisional ballots will be reported to the Secretary of State’s office on Monday, Gloria said. Once any duplicates or improperly cast ballots are rooted out, the state will send the county a final report, which Gloria said can be used to count the provisional ballots by Thursday.
Related: How are Nevada ballots counted and verified?
He provided a partisan breakdown on Saturday of those provisional ballots: 21,490 Democrats, 19,907 Republicans and 19,010 nonpartisans.
Gloria also denied reports from local Republicans that ballots postmarked after Election Day are being counted.
“That’s simply untrue,” Gloria said. “There were 25 (accepted mail ballots) yesterday. There were more than 25, but those are rejected that didn’t have the postmark.”
With the Trump campaign pondering recounts and some extremely close local races in Clark County, Gloria also refreshed the public on recount rules.
There are no automatic recounts in Nevada. Any candidate may request a recount, but he or she must pay for the costs up front, and these costs vary depending on the race, Gloria said.
On Sunday afternoon, Trump Nevada Campaign Chair Adam Laxalt and American Conservative Union Chair Matt Schlapp held a news conference in front of a protest of about 100 Trump supporters at the Clark County elections office.
Laxalt and Schlapp said the campaign is continuing to collect evidence of improper voting and will present their findings in the future.
Contact Rory Appleton at rappleton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0276. Follow @RoryDoesPhonics on Twitter.