Nevada Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) is proposing a bill to add ballot drop boxes across the state between the end of early voting and Election Day — a three-day period during which most other voting opportunities available to Nevadans are unavailable.

The proposal, expected to be formally introduced on Thursday, would require the addition of at least 10 drop boxes in Clark County and five in Washoe County, as well as give rural counties the opportunity to add, but not mandate, additional ballot drop boxes after the end of the state’s two-week early voting period.

In a statement, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar told The Indy that he supported the legislation for its potential to decrease the logjam of ballots received on Election Day.

It’s the latest effort by legislative Democrats to speed up ballot counting without shortening the time frame on when mail ballots can be received — a priority for Republican legislators and Gov. Joe Lombardo.

Drop boxes are locked repositories for mail ballots that serve as an alternative for people who don’t want to put their ballot in the U.S. mail. Most are located at polling sites, meaning they would only be accessible on Election Day and through early voting, which ends three days before Election Day.

Local election and municipal offices also often have drop boxes on site. But during the 2024 general election in Clark County, all of these drop boxes were closed over the weekend, even though most were open on the Monday before the election.

“That was a gap right there,” Yeager said in a Wednesday interview. “There should be the ability to drop off your ballot at a drop box over the weekend.”

State law on ballot drop boxes was created with the passage of AB321, a 2021 bill that made permanent pandemic-era election changes including a requirement to mail ballots to all voters unless they opt out. The bill also required that ballot drop boxes be available when a polling place or clerk’s office is open.

There is bipartisan agreement that the state needs to speed up its ballot counting, which has been blamed for close races in the state not being called until days after Election Day.

In the 2024 general election, the results of tens of thousands of votes were not released until more than one day after polls closed, including the more than 54,000 mail ballots that were dropped off in Clark County drop boxes on Election Day. 

In an interview with The Indy after the election, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar recalled seeing tabulation machines sitting idle while tens of thousands of ballots were waiting to be processed.

“I think it's a staffing question, more than anything else,” Aguilar said.

The secretary of state’s office is expected to propose legislation that would increase resources for county election offices, such as by creating a fund that counties can tap into to add election staff.

Yeager said he has not spoken with the secretary of state’s office about the bill. The office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Republican legislators have focused their election reform efforts on moving up the deadlines for mail ballots to be received. Nevada law allows mail ballots to be received up to four days after Election Day, as long as it is postmarked by Election Day.

A bill from Senate Republicans would require all mail ballots to be received by the end of early voting.

Lombardo also said in his State of the State address that all ballots should be counted by the end of Election Day — and that he would be willing to pose the question to voters through a statewide ballot measure if the Legislature does not pass such a bill.

Yeager said his bill aims to speed up counting without restricting voters’ ballot options.

“I think the proposals that are out there already, in my mind, scale back people's right to vote and don't really solve the problem,” he said. “I think this actually will solve the problem of not having nearly as many ballots actually show up on Election Day.”