Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Heavy Voter Turnout Delays Ballot Count

By JOHN MILLER

Because of a huge voter turnout, there was a shortage of ballots in the Manchester, Hollywood area along with JP district 5.

This led to a delay in getting the votes counted as more than 200 had to be tabulated by hand.

According to Hal Bass, election commissioner in Clark County, between 70 and 75 percent of registered voters went to the polls to make their voices heard. Because of this, these three areas wound up short of ballots.

Election officials said ballots had to be photocopied so people could vote in Manchester, Hollywood and JP district 5.

Absentee and early voter ballot boxes were opened shortly before 7:30 p.m. and counted, though no one expected it to take more than five hours to tabulate the results county-wide.

Clark County Judge Grady Runyan said about 25 people a day had been casting their votes early. In fact, 649 early voters made their choices before Tuesday, while another 281 voted absentee.

Because of the delays, the results were not broken down on a precinct by precinct basis as they usually are, but were given in running totals instead.

Another delay involved the AIS-115 electronic tabulator which stopped when it came across unmarked areas on the ballot, such as the three gambling amendments stricken by the courts.

At the start of the evening, more than 50 people gathered in the Clark County courthouse for the election results. As the clock neared 11 p.m., the crowd had thinned to less than a dozen and many results were still unresolved.

Overall, 8,095 ballots were counted by the electronic tabulator, with the rest done by hand.

The final results tabulated by the machine were read at 11:30, with poll workers still counting and double checking the other three precincts.

These results were finalized around 12:30 a.m. today.

Bass praised the election workers for their effort.