When will election results be announced in Nevada?

It may take voters a few days to know who’s won some of the key races in Nevada, and election experts have cautioned against reading too heavily into the early results that come in on election night before all votes are counted.

Polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, but it may take voters in Nevada a few days to know who’s won some of the key races in the state. 

Even though polls close at 7 p.m, anyone in line to vote by that time will be allowed to vote, and depending on how long the line is at a polling site, it could take some time for that last voter to cast their ballot.

Reporting results before the final voter votes is illegal, so county-level vote counts can’t officially be reported by the Secretary of State website until then, according to state regulations. 

Once all of the counties close their polls and begin counting, the Secretary of State’s Office will begin to post unofficial election night results online at silverstateelection.nv.gov, according to the website for the Secretary of State’s Office.

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar told the Reno Gazette-Journal in January that while it is his goal to produce results as soon as possible, Nevada’s place as a swing state makes unofficial results on election night very unlikely. 

In 2020, it took the Associated Press more than three days after polls closed to call the election for Joe Biden, which they did the Saturday after the election at 9:13 a.m. local time.

Clark County told 8 News Now on Thursday that it will release its totals for early voting and mail-in ballots sent before Nov. 4 first on election night, then update the totals later in the night with in-person election day results. Results for later mail in voting will come in the following days. 

And election experts have cautioned against reading too heavily into the early results that come in on election night. 

In 2022, for example, the Republican candidate for US Senate, Adam Laxalt, led his race on Election Night. It wasn’t until four days after the election that Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto took the lead and eventually won.

A similar shift could unfold this year. 

According to Dan Lee, UNLV associate professor of political science, the first batch of mail-in votes, early votes and in-person election day votes will be counted first, followed by mail-in ballots sent later and on Election Day. 

Lee said this order of counting will likely show an early lead for Republican candidates, because Republican voters have been more likely to vote in person since the state expanded mail-in voting in 2020. 

But as the mail-in votes are counted, Democratic candidates will start to close the gap and potentially take the lead over their Republican competitors, according to Lee. 

“That’s kind of what we saw in 2022,” Lee said. “Cortez-Masto was behind, and after a couple of days, she took the lead over Laxalt, once we were counting up for the mail ballots.” 

Lee warned that this pattern we’ve seen in the past two elections, despite having a clear cause and rationale, could fuel doubt in the results and lead to conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud, especially from Republican voters who have less trust in the process.

Republican distrust in elections has grown dramatically since 2020, due to the efforts of many conservative politicians, including former president Donald Trump, to sow doubt in the integrity elections without any tangible evidence of fraud. 

“I think it’s not so much understanding, but it matters what people believe,” Lee said. “And if there are politicians that are saying that there’s rampant voter fraud, then certain people are just going to believe that, right?” 

While unofficial results may be announced on election night or, more likely, in the following few days, state law requires that counties all mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day, as long as they are received no later than  four days after Election Day.

And due to a recent state Supreme Court ruling, counties will also count ballots without a postmark as long as they are received no later than three days after Election Day. 

If election officials find an issue with a mail-in ballots signature, the voter can submit a signature or other confirmation up to six days after the election according to State statutes. 

The official results only come after all eligible ballots are counted and go through a thorough process of canvassing and verifying the vote count.