In the final sprint before Election Day, candidates with tougher-than-expected primary battles fanned out across the state, trying to drum up a last batch of votes. And advocacy groups planned to canvass neighborhoods just hours before polls closed to make their closing arguments.

At the Casino Fandango in Carson City, about 400 people gathered just outside the ballroom at the edge of sprawling selection of slot machines on Friday to hear from Donald Trump Jr. and Senate candidate Adam Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general facing a robust primary challenge from veteran Sam Brown. 

Laxalt has been quick to remind voters that former President Donald Trump endorsed him, including by plastering images of him and the ex-president on his website and bringing his son into the state as a surrogate.

“Today the Jan. 6 stuff is failing bigly, right? They realized that. You know, it's sort of hard to talk about an insurrection after watching two years of looting, rioting, vandalism, murder all over the country in all the Democratic control cities,” Trump Jr. said, referencing the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

Laxalt looked past the primary to who he might face in the general election — Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto — to paint a picture of chaos in the summer of 2020.

“If I was still the attorney general we would’ve been front and center defending law enforcement. Instead Senator Masto and her party abandoned cops when they needed her most,” Laxalt said. “She just closed her mouth and let that summer of riots go on.”

In Las Vegas, the two were joined by governor candidate and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who was also endorsed by Trump, at a line dancing bar. But in a sign of the tension playing out in the 15-person primary, in which the gap in opinions could not be bridged even by the cheerful sounds of the YMCA playing at the venue, Lombardo was heckled by supporters of candidate Joey Gilbert, who recent polling shows is in second place.

The Las Vegas sheriff deflected the chants of “Joey! Joey!” by saying he “appreciates the discourse.” 

And in heavily Hispanic East Las Vegas, Rep. Dina Titus came to cast a ballot at the neighborhood’s library, where a lowrider showcase was taking place in the parking lot. She briefly hopped into a burnt orange classic car along with Democratic Assembly candidate Cindi Rivera. Meanwhile, a toy lowrider circled around the candidates, occasionally stopping to bounce or lift up. 

“This is all about la comunidad and we wanted to showcase la cultura, especially in East Las Vegas,” Rivera said about the “Low Ridin’ to the Polls” event.

Meanwhile, the Culinary Union was among organizations with last-minute get-out-the-vote campaigns, with plans for an early-morning canvass launch event on Election Day. The union planned to knock doors and strike up conversations with casino workers in employee dining rooms up until 7 p.m. on Tuesday — right when polls close.

How to vote and when we expect results

If you still haven’t voted, you can do so in person on Tuesday at one of the polling locations listed here. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Mail ballots are counted as long as they turned into a polling site dropbox by 7 p.m., or are postmarked on or before Election Day and received by county clerks no later than 5 p.m. on the fourth day following the election (June 18).

Under Nevada law, election officials are not allowed to release any vote totals until after all poll locations statewide have closed at 7 p.m. — but any individuals still in line at that time are still allowed to cast their ballot, and no results can be released while voters are in line.

After polls close and everyone in line has voted, county election officials bring the voting equipment to a central processing center where the votes are counted and tabulated. Those totals are then transmitted to the secretary of state’s office, which keeps a running tally of incoming vote totals on its website.

Typically, unofficial results begin trickling in a few hours after the 7 p.m. poll closure deadline, with additional results and ballots added late into the night and into the early morning. Unlike the 2020 primary election, which was largely conducted by mail with limited in-person voting options because of the COVID-19 pandemic, initial results should come in relatively sooner on Tuesday.

Nevada’s well-publicized expansion of mail voting presents new wrinkles to how election night and the calling of races works. In the past, the vast majority of voters cast their ballots through early voting or on Election Day, meaning the bulk of votes were in by the end of the night. This time around, many voters have taken advantage of mail ballots, according to Clark County Elections Registrar Joe Gloria.  

But with changes adopted by state lawmakers in the 2021 legislative session, Nevada now mails ballots to all active registered voters. Clerks have seven days after the election to count received mail ballots, and in the case of ballots with signatures that don’t match those on record or have some other issue, voters have six days after the election to resolve the issue (a process called signature curing).

As of June 13, there have been 4,000 ballots needing to be cured — 1,539 were resolved and 2,534 remain — Gloria told The Nevada Independent. 

In the 2020 general election, the large number of mail ballots cast by voters combined with a more generous timeline to accept and count mail ballots (nine days to count, which was reduced to seven by lawmakers in 2021) meant that a winner was not declared in several marquee races, including the presidential contest and some top legislative races, until days after Election Day, based on the large number of outstanding mail ballots that took several days to be counted.

For this primary, Gloria said his team will be able to process the ballots in the time frame set in state law. But he noted that the general election could be a challenge because a much larger mail ballot turnout is expected.

Gloria added that the 2020 primary election mishaps in which voters waited hours in line to cast their ballot and results were not released until the wee hours of the next morning, was a “very special situation,” as there was one early voting site and three Election Day sites because of the pandemic. 

“We immediately changed what we were doing and went to a mail ballot that gave everybody access to the ballot,” he said. “We didn't have quite the same number — or anywhere near, actually — the number of sites that you could vote in person … but that won't happen tomorrow.”

In blowouts, these mail ballot-related changes won’t have much of an effect — but in close races, it could mean a multi-day wait between when polls close and when a winner can be determined.

Nevada has also recently adopted laws allowing for same-day voter registration, allowing for state residents to show up to any polling place, register to vote and cast a provisional ballot. In those situations, the voter is required to show a valid Nevada driver’s license and proof of residency if their address is not up-to-date on their license. 

If there is any issue with a voter’s same-day registration, they may be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, which looks like a regular ballot, but it will only count if a voter is able to resolve any eligibility questions with the county clerk. The deadline for provisional ballot voters to resolve a residency issue is June 17. While the number of provisional ballots is historically small, they may affect the outcome of extremely close races.

Editor’s Note: This story appears in Indy 2022, The Nevada Independent’s newsletter dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the 2022 election. Sign up for the newsletter here.