Election Day is Upon Us, and Here in Crucial Washoe County Conflicting Leaders Are on Leave with a New Voter System Being Put to the Test

A recap of our recent reporting plus bonus content.

With both Interim Registrar of Voters Cari-Ann Burgess and County Manager Eric Brown on leave, it’s now up to deputies to organize our county’s crucial voting process, with the implementation of a new voter system creating extra work and tensions. 

Burgess, initially on medical leave, is now on administrative leave, facing charges of insubordination.  She is planning to file a whistleblower complaint and a lawsuit, if she gets terminated, as she now expects will happen after the current election cycle.

She says due to time spent transferring to the new system, right before a major election, she missed a federal deadline to clean county rolls of inactive voters.  

Brown, who wrote that Burgess remains on paid leave until the completion of the election, after which a decision on her employment will be made, went on his own extended medical leave recently, putting himself out of the electoral loop until the end of November.  

The deadline for the county to canvass the vote is November 15th, promising more potential fireworks and court actions, lengthening a process, which not that long ago,  used to be clear a few hours after polls closed.

The research think tank Brookings has listed Washoe County as one of 11 counties it gave a ranking of high concern of possible election non-certification, leading to uncharted waters. 

The Secretary of State’s Voter Registration and Election Management Solution Project, now being implemented by Washoe County, has moved 384,000 voter datasets to a centralized one and made improvements on how to track who is eligible to submit a ballot.

But its implementation just weeks before early voting began created heavy lift tasks for local election staff such as activating voters in apartment buildings who had been marked as inactive, as the previous system had labeled apartment addresses as commercial addresses. 

Whatever the challenges, Election Day is now upon us.  

Voting will be facilitated with RTC Washoe providing free transit on Election Day, with Lyft and Uber offering half-off rides.  Same-day registration and voting is allowed on Tuesday with valid ID.

There are 55 polling locations to choose from in our county with voting starting at 7 a.m. and allowed for all voters who arrive in line by 7 p.m.  Mail-in ballots can still be dropped off at drop box location or sent out on Election Day.  

Voters who have already voted can check on https://nevada.ballottrax.net/voter/  if their vote was received. 

If it says challenged a voter can contact the county by phone, with a website link available to cure their signature if that’s needed. 

Whatever the challenges, happy voting if you are eligible and choose to exercise that right!

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