State primary turnout lowest on record

LAS VEGAS — Voters abstained by a landslide in Nevada’s primary election.

With most ballots counted, turnout was expected to easily set a record low for a primary, despite two weeks of early voting and 12 hours of open polls on Tuesday, Election Day.

Three House races, a post on the state Supreme court and 25 legislative primaries failed to attract many of the state’s 1.3 million eligible voters.

Unofficial returns looked roughly on par with earlier estimates of 15 percent turnout — well below the previous low set in 2000 when 23 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

In Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, turnout was just under 14.8 percent, according to the county election department. With 100 percent of precincts counted, officials reported fewer than 103,000 of the county’s nearly 700,000 registered voters went to the polls.

About 20 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the Reno area, according to Washoe County Registrar of Voters election results.

Turnout was 22.1 percent in Elko County, in the northeastern part of the state, according to the Nevada Secretary of State.

State records dating back to 1950 show primary turnouts falling below 30 percent just four times, in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004.

Voters on Tuesday blamed empty polling places on hot weather, a bad economy and more interest in the November general election.

“People maybe don’t care so much. I hate to use that word but it may be true,” said Todd Bowles, 30, after casting his vote at a Las Vegas middle school minutes before the polls closed Tuesday. “There’s too much focus on the general election and not on these little ones we have.”

Thomas Glasper, a 52-year-old volunteer who directed Bowles to the polls, blamed hot weather and gas prices.

“The way the economy is right now, people are looking at it like ’You think they’re going to make a change?”’ Glasper said. “The resources are not there for anybody to make a change.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio blamed the low turnout in part on the early date of the primary that traditionally had been held in Nevada after Labor Day.

“A lot of people are gone or out of town. A lot of people don’t realize that,” he said.

Officials have expressed disappointment with far better numbers.

In 1996, then Secretary of State Dean Heller called turnout disgraceful when 31 percent of voters decided three U.S. House primaries; endorsed one big bond issue and rejected another; and ousted two incumbents in legislative contests. He had been hoping for 45 percent turnout in that primary.

In 1980, Secretary of State Bill Swackhamer cited “a lack of interest” in predicting that no more than half of eligible voters would go to the polls in the presidential primary.

Before 1996, primary turnout had never fallen below 37 percent, and was consistently well above 40 percent as long as records were kept.