9,000 Nevada ballots went uncounted this year due to signature issues

(Photo: Hugh Jackson/Nevada Current)

Thousands of Nevada residents won’t get their vote counted after the Tuesday deadline to fix incomplete mail-in ballots across the state came and went.

Voters in Nevada had the chance to fix signature errors with their mail ballots by Tuesday Nov. 12. However, as of Wednesday about 9,000 ballots throughout Nevada did not have signatures verified and were not counted, according to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office. Most of those uncured ballots — about 7,500 — were from Clark County, the most populous county in the state.

Election officials “cure” a ballot by informing voters who did not sign the return envelope, or whose signature did not match records, and allowing those voters to correct the mistakes. Ballots that are not cured are at risk of rejection.

More than 23,000 Nevada ballots were successfully cured before the Tuesday deadline, or 72% of total ballots in need of curing.

More than half of the 9,000 Nevada ballots not cured by the deadline came from voters not belonging to either the Democratic or Republican Party. Nonpartisan or a minor party accounted for about 5,144 ballots that failed to get cured, Democrats accounted for 1,782, while Republicans accounted for 2,263.

By the Tuesday deadline, Nye County successfully cured a higher portion of their outstanding ballots than any other county, about 1,600 ballots, or 96%. The county with the second highest percentage of cured ballots was Washoe County at about 85%, or 6,000 ballots total.

In Clark County, the most populous county, about 15,000 ballots, or 66%, of outstanding ballots were successfully cured.