Clark County registrar says bulk of mail-in ballots will be counted by the weekend

The Clark County, Nevada, registrar said on Thursday that the bulk of the county’s mail-in ballots will likely be counted by the weekend. 

“The bulk of our ballots we’re hoping will be read by Saturday or Sunday this weekend,” said Joe Gloria, the county’s registrar, adding that the processing of ballots will not be complete until Nov. 12. 

Nevada is one of a few states left to be called as the presidential election remains undecided two days after Election Day. The state, which has six electoral votes up for grabs, had over 1 million ballots cast by mail or in-person prior to Election Day, surpassing the state’s total 2016 turnout. 

However, the slow pace at which Nevada has reported its results has garnered nationwide attention. 

“I think it’s important for the entire country to understand that mail ballots on this scale is very new to the state of Nevada,” Gloria said. “We made a decision here to provide as much access as we possibly could as a result of the pandemic, and so our process has run a little bit slower.” 

“We also have to make sure that our data is being updated because we need to prevent people from voting twice in the system,” he said. “And so we have to scan those in as mail-received so that it updates the database so that our in-person voters can’t have voted twice.” 

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden expanded his lead in Nevada on Thursday to just over 11,000 votes. He leads with 604,251 votes while Trump trails at 592,813 after additional ballots were counted from Clark County, the most populous county in the state and home to Las Vegas. 

Gloria’s comments come after the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Nevada on Thursday, alleging that votes have been cast by deceased people and nonresidents. 

Gloria pushed back on the assertion, saying he had not seen any evidence of improper ballots being processed. 

“We are not aware of any improper ballots that are being processed,” he said.